Republicans in Congress say they are initiating an investigation into the actions of the FBI for a search it did at former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence.
FBI agents on Monday searched Mar-a-Lago, which is also a private club, as part of a federal investigation into whether the former president took classified records from the White House to his estate, people familiar with the matter said.
It marked a a dramatic escalation of law enforcement scrutiny of Trump, who faces an array of inquiries tied to his conduct in the waning days of his administration.
Rep. Mike Turner, a Republican from Ohio and the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said there are going to be “significant investigations by Congress into the actions of the FBI.”
“This is something certainly that bears a high level of scrutiny because it certainly rises to the level of significant constitutional questions of the actions of the president, the actions of the attorney general and the actions of the FBI director,” Turner told The Associated Press.
Attorney General Merrick has not tipped his hand despite an outcry from some Democrats impatient over whether the department was even pursuing evidence that has surfaced in the Jan. 6 probe and other investigations— and from Republicans who were swift to echo Trump’s claims that he was the victim of political prosecution.
All Garland has said publicly is that “no one is above the law.”
Trump and his allies quickly sought to cast the search as a weaponization of the criminal justice system and a Democratic-driven effort to keep him from winning another term in 2024 — though the Biden White House said it had no prior knowledge and current FBI Director Christopher Wray was appointed by Trump five years ago.
Monday’s search intensified the monthslong probe into how classified documents ended up in boxes of White House records located at Mar-a-Lago earlier this year. A separate grand jury is investigating efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, and it all adds to potential legal peril for Trump as he lays the groundwork for a potential repeat run for the White House.
A federal judge had to sign off on the warrant after establishing that FBI agents had shown probable cause before they could descend on Trump’s shuttered-for-the-season home — he was in New York, 1,000 or so miles away, at the time of the search.
Turner said the congressional investigation is seeking answers on the contents of the criminal referral from the archivist to the FBI.
“The president of the United States has the ability to classify or declassify documents. So just because they’re labeled classified doesn’t mean that something substantively is classified,” Turner said. “The archive is certainly isn’t the one that makes that decision.”
Trump did not elaborate on the basis for the search, but the Justice Department has been investigating the potential mishandling of classified information after the National Archives and Records Administration said it had received from Mar-a-Lago 15 boxes of White House records, including documents containing classified information, earlier this year.
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AP LINKS:
FBI’s search of Trump’s Florida estate: Why now?
EXPLAINER: How does the FBI get a warrant to search a home?