An attorney for former President Donald Trump claimed that FBI agents wanted to “sneak in” and “snoop around” during Monday’s raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
Lindsey Halligan, an attorney for Trump, was present during the search, which is believed to be related to 15 boxes of materials that were returned in January of this year, which may have contained classified documents. The Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI executed the search warrant “in part because they believed additional classified information remained at the private club.”
Halligan said the raid is a symptom of a larger problem than Trump being targeted.
“It’s unprecedented in United States history. The government seems to be out of control. It’s plagued with manipulation, corruption, greed and fraud,” she said Wednesday on Fox News’ “Hannity.”
The attorney said the FBI had fully taken over the home by the time she got there. “I arrived around 11 a.m. and there were about 30 to 40 FBI agents that I saw,” she said.
“They basically had unfettered access to the property. They refused to talk to me. They refused to let me in. All I knew is that they were searching areas one, two and three, which I understood to be the former president’s bedroom, his office and a storage room. And other than that, we were not allowed to talk to them or go inside at all,” Halligan said.
This also means there was no restraint nor ability to observe what was done on the property.
“They looked at God knows what in there and did God knows what in there. We have no idea,” she said. “What the FBI did was an appalling display of abuse of power.”
As a result of the FBI’s unfettered access to the property, some, including former President Trump, have suggested the possibility that FBI agents could have planted evidence on the property.
Trump-attorney-speaks-out-on-the-Mar-a-Lago-raid
“The FBI and others from the Federal Government would not let anyone, including my lawyers, be anywhere near the areas that were rummaged and otherwise looked at during the raid on Mar-a-Lago,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Everyone was asked to leave the premises, they wanted to be left alone, without any witnesses to see what they were doing, taking or, hopefully not, “planting.” Why did they STRONGLY insist on having nobody watching them, everybody out? Obama and Clinton were never “raided,” despite big disputes!”
Halligan continued, saying the former president had been complying with document requests.
“All documents requested were previously handed over. President Trump and his team painstakingly reviewed every single document at Mar-a-Lago and gave the government what they requested. If they needed any other documents, they could have just asked,” the attorney said.
Halligan noted one other aspect of the raid.
“The warrant was secured under seal, so they tried to get away with concealing this overreach by obtaining a warrant under seal. Nobody knew about it,” she said.
The attorney said federal agents believed they could slip in and out without a fuss because Trump was in Bedminster, New Jersey, where his golf club recently hosted an LIV event.
“They knew that President Trump was in Bedminster and hasn’t been at Mar-a-Lago for some time,” Halligan said.
“They thought they could sneak in, snoop around without attorneys present and in case they walked out with nothing, so nobody would know that they overreached this degree,” she said.
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