Former President Donald Trump has issued a response to Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Garland spoke publicly about the unprecedented raid on Trump’s personal residence, Mar-a-Lago, in a Thursday news conference.
Trump responded to Garland’s claims about the raid in two Truth Social posts.
The former president said that his legal representatives were cooperating with federal authorities in discussions over custody of White House documents.
Garland declined to explain the justification behind the unprecedented raid in his Thursday presser, but Trump and his oldest son have suggested the entire incident stemmed from document disputes.
Trump wrote on Truth Social, “The government could have had whatever they wanted, if we had it.”
“Everything was fine, better than that of most previous Presidents, and then, out of nowhere and with no warning, Mar-a-Lago was raided, at 6:30 in the morning, by VERY large numbers of agents, and even ‘safecrackers.’ They got way ahead of themselves. Crazy!”
Trump broke the news of the unprecedented raid hours after the Monday operation.
Trump questioned why former President Barack Obama’s retention of millions of pages of presidential documents hadn’t ever merited the same FBI treatment in a Truth Social message before Garland’s afternoon announcement.
Do you agree with Trump?
“What happened to the 30 million pages of documents taken from the White House to Chicago by Barack Hussein Obama? He refused to give them back! What is going on? This act was strongly at odds with NARA. Will they be breaking into Obama’s ‘mansion’ in Martha’s Vineyard?”
President Trump Responds To Garland’s News Conference pic.twitter.com/pWkV9ZjGlT
— The Columbia Bugle ?? (@ColumbiaBugle) August 11, 2022
Eric Trump revealed that the FBI had ransacked through the 128-room Mar-a-Lago resort in a Wednesday Daily Mail interview.
Donald Trump indicated that federal agents had searched former First Lady Melania Trump’s personal belongings in the operations, including her clothes.
“Just learned that agents went through the First Lady’s closets and rummaged through her clothing and personal items. Surprisingly, left area in a relative mess. Wow!” Trump said in a subsequent Truth Social post.
Garland revealed that the Department of Justice had filed a motion to unseal parts of the warrant underlying the search on Thursday, partially due to public interest in the case.
Parts of the warrant will reach the public domain pursuant to a judge’s ruling by Friday, unless Trump’s attorneys object to the unsealing.
New: Judge gives DOJ until 3pm ET tomorrow to find out and report back whether Trump will oppose unsealing the Mar-a-Lago search warrant docs https://t.co/a7fN1t1omD pic.twitter.com/3UWqGyo8Sy
— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) August 11, 2022
A lawyer for Trump previously indicated that the FBI had only presented a sealed copy of the warrant during the search.
