(Washington) The FBI search at the home of former President Donald Trump in Florida would have targeted in particular classified documents relating to nuclear weapons, revealed Thursday evening the washington postciting unnamed sources.
Updated yesterday at 9:14 p.m.
The sources of the American daily did not give more details on the information sought by the FBI agents.
Also citing an anonymous source, the New York Times for its part reported Thursday evening that the investigators were interested in documents resulting from “special access programs” (special access programs), a term that generally refers to delicate operations carried out abroad by the United States.
During an exceptional press conference held on Thursday, the Attorney General of the United States, Merrick Garland, did not reveal anything about the reasons for and the results of the FBI operation, but he did – uncharacteristically – announce that he had requested that the warrant that allowed the search to be made public.
Mr Garland claimed to have “personally approved” of the FBI’s spectacular search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida home, and condemned the “unfounded attacks” on his department and federal police after the raid which angered Republicans .
“I personally endorsed the decision to seek a search warrant for this case,” Mr. Garland said in a short and rare televised appearance.
“The department does not take this kind of decision lightly,” he added, adding that it had been approved by a federal judge.
Stressing that “ethical obligations” prevented him from detailing the reasons for the raid, Mr. Garland said he asked a Florida judge to lift the confidentiality of the warrant, Mr. Trump having publicly confirmed the search and in view of “the ‘important public interest’ for this case.
Mr. Trump, who received a copy of the warrant but did not reveal it, has until Friday to contest the request.
For analysts, Mr. Garland thus returns the ball to Donald Trump, who assures that the search is unjustified and was carried out for political reasons, de facto challenging him to oppose the publication of the warrant.
Does the federal police search have to do with the many boxes that Donald Trump took with him when he left the White House in January 2021? Is it linked to the investigation into his responsibility in the assault on the Capitol? Does it rather concern the suspicions of financial fraud of which the Trump Organization is the subject in New York?
In the court document requesting the confidentiality of the warrant, the Department of Justice cited, without contradicting them, public statements by Mr. Trump’s representatives indicating that the FBI was looking for archival documents from the White House and possibly classified.
Unprecedented
This unprecedented search by the FBI of a former president of the United States took place on Monday at the luxury residence of Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.
Outraged, the 45e The US president wrote on his social network Truth Social on Thursday that his lawyers were cooperating “fully” with the authorities when “suddenly and without warning, Mar-a-Lago was raided, at 6:30 a.m., by a VERY large number of agents”.
He also complained that officers “searched the first lady’s closets and searched through her clothes and personal effects”, leaving them in “a relative mess”.
The day before, he had suggested that the FBI may have “placed” evidence against him during this operation.
Never had a former tenant of the White House been worried by justice in this way.
Republican sympathizers, though known to usually show their support for law enforcement, have criticized the FBI in a virulent way.
The Association of FBI Agents on Thursday called ‘calls for violence against the police’ ‘unacceptable’ and FBI Director Christopher Wray denounced ‘baseless attacks’ that ‘undermine respect for the state by right “.
Under pressure
In the wake of the search, the Republican tenors joined forces with their former president, who did not recognize his defeat in 2020 and plans to run again in 2024.
Former Vice President Mike Pence, himself a possible rival to Donald Trump in two years, expressed his “deep concern” after the FBI raid.
The Republican billionaire was also subjected to a hearing under oath, Wednesday, in the office of the Attorney General of New York.
But he invoked for four hours more than 440 times his right not to answer questions, under the 5e amendment to the US Constitution, according to US media.
New York State’s top magistrate, Letitia James, has been investigating since 2019 on suspicion of financial and tax fraud within the Trump Organization family group.