WASHINGTON — Former President Trump said in a statement Monday that the FBI is searching his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, in what he described as a “raid.”
It was not immediately clear why agents were present at his Palm Beach home, but Trump said the property was “under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents.” He added that the agents broke open his safe.
“After working and cooperating with the relevant government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate,” he said.
In the statement, Trump called the search an attempt to influence the midterm elections in November and compared it to the Nixon campaign bugging the Democratic National Committee during the Watergate scandal.
Several former Trump administration officials have testified before a grand jury recently as part of the Justice Department investigation into the events around the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, but it was not immediately clear whether the search is connected to that or to other Trump-related investigations including the potential destruction of presidential records that took place when he left office.
Trump has strongly indicated he will seek another term, with an announcement expected as soon as in the next few weeks.
The U.S. attorney’s offices in Washington and the Southern District of Florida did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A White House official said on background that the administration was not informed of the search in advance.
A spokesman for the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol declined to comment.
Julian E. Zelizer, a presidential historian at Princeton University, said Trump is correct in noting the unprecedented nature of the raid, even if his analogy to Watergate is way off.
“It’s not a break-in. It’s the opposite,” he said. “This is a warranted search. It’s not like what Nixon did to the Democrats. If anything, it’s more akin to what might have happened to Nixon had he not been pardoned.”
The other unprecedented aspect of the federal investigation, Zelizer added, is Trump’s nascent but still unannounced bid to seek the presidency again in 2024.
“It’s not simply an ex-president who’s being investigated, but a potential nominee for 2024,” he said.
Trump’s immediate politicization of the raid is no surprise considering his past responses to a special counsel investigation, two impeachments and the other ongoing federal inquiries into his business dealings. He is no longer constitutionally immune to prosecution as a sitting president.
“He does not ever get attacked and not use the attack” for political gain, Zelizer said. “The question is: Does the evidence of what’s being found overwhelm his ability to capitalize politically?”
