A source familiar with the papers stored at former US President Donald Trump’s Florida residence at Mar-a-Lago tipped off federal investigators to the possibility that classified documents may be stored there, The Wall Street Journal reported.
FBI agents on June 3 visited Mar-a-Lago to discuss boxes of government records stored in a room in the residence’s basement, several days after which they sent a note requesting a stronger lock on the storage room, the report said late on Wednesday.
Weeks later, a source familiar with the documents stored at Mar-a-Lago told investigators that more classified material may be stored at the residence than that about which they knew, the report said, citing people with knowledge of the situation.
The National Archives earlier in the year retrieved 15 boxes of documents from Trump, according to the report. When FBI investigators left a raid on Mar-a-Lago on Monday, agents also left with boxes, the report said.
Trump has condemned the raid, arguing that the US justice system is being weaponized against him. Trump’s lawyers were also not allowed to observe the search of his residence while it was undertaken, the former president said on Wednesday.
The warrant for the raid that would disclose the reason behind the search has yet to be made public. However, a US federal judge on Wednesday ordered that the government file a response by August 15 to a motion by legal activism group Judicial Watch to unseal the warrant.
