FBI Trump Home Raid Improperly Intrusive, Circumstances Indicate

There’s a reason to suspect the FBI searching the Florida residence of former President Donald Trump was improperly intrusive, according to several lawyers. The raid prompted a rebuke from Trump and Republicans more broadly and further escalated political tensions in the nation.

About two dozen FBI agents entered Trump’s Palm Beach resort of Mar-A-Lago around 9 p.m. on Aug. 8 and left about 10 hours later with “a handful of boxes of documents,” one of Trump’s attorneys on scene, Christina Bobb, told The Epoch Times.

“I didn’t actually get to oversee the search, they wouldn’t let anybody see what they were doing,” she said.

It’s not clear what legal basis the FBI had for the raid. The agents had a search warrant signed by a judge, but the affidavit explaining the basis—its probable cause—was filed under seal and Trump’s lawyers weren’t allowed to examine it, Bobb said.

In general, the agents were looking for “what they deemed to be presidential records,” she said.

“I don’t think there was anything of substance.”

Trump’s legal team will take steps to obtain the affidavit, she said.

There has been some back-and-forth between National Archives and Trump over whether he still has some documents that should be stored at the archives under the U.S. Presidential Records Act.

Trump has been cooperative on that front, Bobb said, and even invited the FBI previously to Mar-A-Lago to examine the White House records he had in storage at the time.

“Nothing had been hidden and nothing had been kept secret from them, which makes this all the more ridiculous,” she said.

Potentially illegal

The raid may have been illegally invasive, according to former federal prosecutor Mike Davis.

“Under the case law, you can’t do a home raid if you can secure the documents through less intrusive means,” he