Donald Trump says FBI agents are searching Mar-a-Lago | Politics News

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

The former president is a potential subject a number of investigations over his businesses and involvement in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

A “large group” of federal agents has entered former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence in an “unannounced raid”, he said on social media on Monday.

Officials from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) entered the property in a move that “was not necessary or appropriate”, Trump wrote in a statement.

The circumstances surrounding the raid were not clear.

Trump said his home, Mar-a-Lago was “under siege, raided and occupied” calling it a “weaponization of the Justice System” that could only happen in “broken, Third-World Countries”.

He alleged in his statement the FBI move is backed by Democrats who “desperately” do not want him to run for reelection in 2024.

In February, classified materials were found in 15 boxes of official documents related to the Trump presidency retrieved at Mar-a-Lago by the US National Archives. Under US law, all communication regarding presidential duties are to be preserved. White House aides have recounted that Trump often tore up documents that later had to be taped together.

Photographs made public Monday morning reportedly showed handwritten notes by Trump ripped apart at the bottom of a toilet bowl. Axios first reported the allegations it said are included in an upcoming book by New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman.

The former president is also connected with investigations over potentially illegal business practices, his efforts to overturn the 2020 US elections, and his role in the January 6, 2021 assault on the US Capitol.

Several former advisors and staff have testified in the congressional inquiry over the origins of the riot on the Capitol, with much of the focus on the former president, his actions leading up to it and his refusal for hours to rein in his mob of supporters as they stormed the Capitol.

More to follow.