Inside the Trump raid
They even searched Melania’s closet
FBI agents spent nine hours scouring Mar-aLago, sources told The Post, including looking through Melania Trump’s walk-in wardrobe. More than 30 agents were on scene, and former President Trump’s inner circle is upset that none of his legal team was allowed to stay and witness the search.
FBI agents scoured Melania Trump’s wardrobe and spent several hours combing through Donald Trump’s private office, as well as breaking open his safe when they raided the former first family’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida on Monday morning.
The Post has learned that the search warrant used by the FBI to enter the palatial Palm Beach property focused solely on presidential records and evidence of classified information being stored there.
A source close to the former president expressed concern that FBI agents or Justice Department lawyers conducting the search could have “planted stuff ” because they would not allow Trump’s attorneys inside the 128room building to observe the operation, which lasted more than nine hours.
The raid by more than 30 plainclothes agents from the Southern District of Florida and the FBI’s Washington Field Office extended through the Trump family’s entire 3,000-square-foot private quarters, as well as to a separate office and safe, and a locked basement storage room in which 15 cardboard boxes of material from the White House were stored. Feds arrived at 9 a.m. and didn’t leave until 6:30 p.m.
An eyewitness to the raid said all of the boxes were confiscated by federal agents Monday, but it is unknown if anything else was taken as no itemized list of items was provided by the FBI.
The boxes contain documents and mementoes from Trump’s presidency, reportedly including letters from Barack Obama and Kim Jong-un and other correspondence with world leaders.
A legal source said that the boxes had been packed up by the General Services Administration and shipped to Mar-a-Lago when Trump left office in January 2020.
Trump’s attorneys, led by Evan Corcoran, had been cooperating with federal authorities on the return of the documents to the National Archives and Records Administration, according to sources.
On May 25, Corcoran granted access into Mar-a-Lago’s windowless storage room to FBI agents who spent several hours searching through the boxes.
Trump stopped by the basement to say hello at one point, says someone who was there.
The Trump family since has decamped for the summer to his golf estate in Bedminster, NJ.
Mar-a-Lago is closed for the season and only a skeleton staff, including groundskeepers, were present during Monday’s raid.
Access to the 20-acre private club is believed to have been granted by heavily armed Secret Service agents at the front gates. Lawyers for the former president, who were caught off guard by the raid, arrived an hour later.
Secret Service’s role
The FBI would not have executed a warrant without notifying the Secret Service first, according to a retired high-ranking Secret Service agent.
Once inside the air-conditioned, white marble private quarters, agents fanned out to search every room while shocked staff were instructed by Trump’s lawyers to unlock doors and provide the FBI access to every room.
One group of agents, including a professional safe cracker, searched Trump’s office and safe.
The demeanor of the three DOJ lawyers who accompanied the FBI was described by one eyewitness as “arrogant,” and they repeatedly told Trump representatives: “We have full access to everything. We can go everywhere.”
Despite the 91-degree temperatures Monday, Trump’s lawyers were forbidden by the feds to shelter inside the cool lobby or to observe the search in any way.
The feds instructed Trump’s representatives to switch off the security cameras but they refused.