Registering the property of a former President of the United States is a rare occurrence. Yet this is what happened to Donald Trump on Monday, at his famous Florida residence of Mar-a-Lago, located in Palm Beach. An occurrence so unusual that such a search warrant would require the approval of a federal judge, or even the Minister of Justice. To trigger such an operation, therefore, it is necessary for the justice system to consider it probable that a crime has been committed and for the search to allow the collection of evidence.
This search shows the extent of Donald Trump’s problems with the law. The former president is the subject of two investigations in particular: one on the attack on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021 and the other on the case of the unreturned presidential files. If the FBI did not communicate the motivations for this raid, it is this latest investigation that the US media uses to explain the police visit.
Negligence in the handling of presidential documents
When a president leaves the White House, he should not take with him official documents related to the exercise of his functions. This is stipulated in a 1978 law, introduced after the Nixon presidency, marked by the Watergate scandal. the Presidential Records Act mandates transmitting all your emails, letters, memos, and other business documents to the National Archives, a federal agency responsible for preserving them.
A precaution that Donald Trump did not take. He is suspected of negligence in handling presidential documents, particularly those classified as “secret defense,” including seeking to clear things up before leaving.
“The Presidential Records Act is essential to our democracy, in which the people hold government accountable,” archivist David Ferriero said in a February statement reported by washington post.
Keeping such documents is a “federal crime”
Last January, after a year of insistence, the National Archives were able to recover from Mar-a-Lago fifteen boxes full of documents directly from the White House, and that Donald Trump should never have taken with him.
In these boxes were letters from Barack Obama and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as well as many other documents but also, according to washington post, several documents classified as “secret defense”. The National Archives had then requested the opening of an investigation.
Keeping such documents constitutes a “federal crime,” as Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor, tells CNN. Beyond that, the storage of these files at Mar-a-Lago poses a security problem, the researchers point out, especially for classified files.
“Presidents have a solemn duty to protect the national security of the United States, and allegations that former President Trump jeopardized our security by mishandling classified information deserve the utmost scrutiny,” Democratic Rep. York, Carolyn Maloney.
Find additional files
According to US media, with Monday’s search, “the FBI had to verify that nothing had been forgotten.” By early June, a handful of investigators had already flocked to Mar-a-Lago seeking more information on documents potentially classified as “secret defense.”
During the seizure of the 15 boxes, archivist David Ferriero said in a statement that Trump’s representatives were “continuing to seek” additional records.
“They even broke into my safe!” Donald Trump said in a statement on Monday.
His attorney, Christina Bobb, I affirm that the FBI had seized documents during the search, which focused on Donald Trump’s offices and personal rooms inside the residence.
Documents torn or flushed down the toilet
The National Archives had also revealed that the former leader had a habit of tearing up some of his work documents, another practice contrary to the 1978 law. In fact, many files were transmitted in poor condition: torn papers, some “taped together by “White House Records Management Officials,” others were left in pieces.
Already in 2018, the Political site recounted how the White House staff made up for the president’s shortcomings by collecting the working documents divided into four, to carefully paste and file them.
In a book to be published next October, a journalist from New York Times He also claims that White House staff regularly found packages of papers blocking bathrooms and therefore suspected that Donald Trump wanted to get rid of certain documents.
An echo of the Capitol Invasion investigation?
“After working and cooperating with relevant government agencies, this unannounced search of my home was neither necessary nor appropriate,” Donald Trump said on Monday.
The announcement of the raid did not fail to provoke outrage in the Republican ranks.
This new twist in the legal saga of the former president also echoes the other investigation to which he is the subject: his responsibility in the invasion of the Capitol on January 6, 2021 and the possible disappearance or degradation of certain official documents related to this case.
Source: BFM TV
