In the aftermath of the FBI raid at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, Trump’s passports have been returned to him, and Norah O’Donnell of CBS has been proved wrong in her claims that the FBI never took them in the first place.
On Monday, Trump claimed that his three passports had been taken during the FBI raid conducted last week, NBC News reported.
FBI agents searched Trump’s home last week looking for “‘various’ classified materials,” Forbes reported.
After the search, the Department of Justice released a list of the documents seized. The list included “various” classified materials, confidential documents, photos, a handwritten note, an executive grant of clemency for Trump’s ally Roger Stone and “info re: President of France,” according to Forbes.
Trump’s passports were not included in the list of seized materials.
But in a Truth Social post, Trump said that agents “stole my three Passports (one expired), along with everything else.”
“This is an assault on a political opponent at a level never seen before in our Country. Third World!” he added.
He did not clarify whether these were his personal or government passports from his time as president.
But after Trump’s claims about his passports, O’Donnell, anchor of “CBS Evening News,” tweeted that according to a DOJ official, agents did not take Trump’s passports, the New York Post reported.
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“According to a DOJ official, the FBI is NOT in possession of former President Trump’s passports. Trump had accused the FBI of stealing his three passports during the search of his Mar-a-Lago home,” O’Donnell tweeted, according to the Post.
But O’Donnell’s claim was starkly contradicted when the FBI acknowledged that it had indeed taken the passports during the search, but then returned items that were not needed.
“In executing search warrants, the FBI follows search and seizure procedures ordered by courts, then returns items that do not need to be retained for law enforcement purposes,” the bureau said in a statement, the Post reported.
A Justice Department official followed up, saying that Trump’s passports have been returned, NBC reported.
“Occasionally a warrant collection can grab things outside the scope authorized by the court and the department is now following a procedure we would for any person affected this way,” a DOJ official said, according to Just the News.
However, Trump’s attorney Christina Bobb has criticized law enforcement over the passport situation and said that she will refuse to give them a “pass” for taking the passports during the search, she told Fox News.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08jXAExOjcc
“I think this goes to show the level of audacity that they have,” Bobb said.
“So I don’t give them a pass as this was a simple mistake,” Bobb added. “I think it goes to show how aggressive they were, how overreaching they were, that they were willing to go past the four corners of the warrant and take whatever they felt was appropriate, or they felt that they could take and then go back through and look through everything.”
Meanwhile, Trump himself has continued to criticize the search of his home and call it unnecessary.
“They could have had it anytime they wanted without playing politics and breaking into Mar-a-Lago,” he wrote on Truth Social.
“It was in secured storage, with an additional lock put on as per their request. They could have had it anytime they wanted — and that includes LONG ago. ALL THEY HAD TO DO WAS ASK,” he added.
