Former US President Donald Trump said that FBI agents took control of his residence in Florida and conducted an unnecessary search, stressing that he was subjected to political persecution with the aim of preventing him from running for president again.
Trump said on Monday evening that his Mar-a-Lago resort was under the control of a large group of FBI investigators.
He added, in a statement, that the FBI conducted a sudden, unnecessary and inappropriate search of his residence, as he described it.
The former Republican president said that FBI investigators broke his personal safe and confiscated what was in it.
He added that he cooperated with the relevant government institutions, "but this raid on my house is unnecessary and violates the laws."
"Nothing like this has happened to an American president before, and such an attack can only happen in the Third World," the statement said.
Trump stressed that he has been subjected to political persecution for years, "and there has been no political targeting at the highest level."
The former US president accused Democrats of using the justice system as a weapon to prevent him from running for president in 2024, and said, "Our nation is living in dark times."
But he stressed that he is going ahead with his candidacy for the presidency.
Secret boxes and documents
The former president did not indicate the reasons for the police raid on his home, but his lawyer, Christina Pope, confirmed that FBI agents confiscated a number of documents.
She explained that she was present during the inspection process.
CNN reported that investigators are looking for presidential documents that Trump may have transferred to his Florida residence.
It quoted informed sources that Trump was present at his resort at the time of the investigators' visit.
For its part, the New York Times quoted an informed source that Trump transferred to his residence boxes containing secret documents.
She added that he was late in returning 15 boxes containing materials requested by officials in the National Archives for months.
As for the Washington Post, it said that the raid on Trump's residence was authorized by the court for his possible mishandling of classified documents.
She added that the inspection came in search of possible evidence of the crime of misuse of confidential government documents.
The investigation comes after the US National Archives and Records Administration notified Congress in February that it had recovered about 15 boxes of White House documents from Trump's Florida home, some of them containing classified material.
The US House of Representatives Oversight Committee announced at the time that it would expand the investigation into Trump's actions and asked the Archives to turn over additional information.
According to a forthcoming book by New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, White House staff regularly discovered piles of paper clogging toilets, leading them to believe that Trump was trying to dispose of certain documents.
Reactions
In the first reactions, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said that the launch of an investigation with a former president close to the time of the elections raises problems.
As for Eric Trump, the son of the former president, he said that "Biden's Department of Justice is out of control, tearing the country apart by openly targeting its political enemies."
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy pledged to conduct an in-depth investigation of what happened when they "get a majority in the House".
And US media quoted a White House official as saying, "No one has informed us of the raid on Trump's residence in Florida."
Other issues
In addition to the file of documents, Trump is also under investigation in other cases, most notably his supporters storming Congress to prevent the ratification of his Democratic rival's victory, his attempts to change the results of the presidential elections in Georgia, and some of his business practices in New York.
For weeks, a Washington House committee has been holding congressional hearings about the January 6, 2021, storming of the US Capitol by Trump supporters, as part of its investigation into an attempt to overturn the presidential election.
While Attorney General Merrick Garland declined to comment on speculation that Trump could be charged with criminal charges, he emphasized that "no one is above the law" and expressed his determination to "hold everyone criminally responsible for attempting to overturn a legitimate election to be held accountable."