Former US president Donald Trump said Monday that his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida was being “raided” by FBI agents in what he called an act of “prosecutorial misconduct.”
The FBI declined to comment on whether the search was happening or what it might be for, nor did Trump give any indication of why federal agents were at his home — a situation that adds to the legal pressures on the ex-president.
Multiple US media outlets cited sources close to the investigation as saying that agents were conducting a court-authorized search related to the potential mishandling of classified documents that had been sent to Mar-a-Lago.
In a statement posted on his Truth Social network, Trump said his “beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents.”
Aerial footage of Mar-a-Lago showed police cars outside the property. Supporters of the ex-US leader also gathered outside, waving banners with Trump’s name or American flags emblazoned with his face.
“It is prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024,” said Trump, who was not present during the raid, according to The New York Times.
“Such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries. Sadly, America has now become one of those Countries,” he said, adding: “They even broke into my safe!”
Some senior Republicans also took to social media to criticize the raid and accuse the Justice Department of overreach.
The National Archives said in February it had recovered 15 boxes of documents from Trump’s Florida estate, which The Washington Post reported included highly classified texts, taken with him when he left Washington following his reelection defeat.
The documents and mementos — which also included correspondence from ex-US president Barack Obama — should by law have been turned over at the end of Trump’s presidency but instead ended up at his Mar-a-Lago resort.