Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday that the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a motion to unseal the search warrant relating to former President Donald Trump’s Florida property.
The FBI executed a search warrant Monday at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. The incident sparked a flurry of reactions from both sides of the aisle, but the DOJ remained silent for days afterwards. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Ron Johnson Calls For FBI, DOJ Employees To Come Forward With Info On Trump Mar-A-Lago Raid)
Garland declined to provide further details of the search, but noted that he “personally approved the decision to seek” the warrant. He also decried “recent unfounded attacks on the professionalism of the FBI and Justice Department agents and prosecutors,” declaring he would “not stand by silently.”
“Just now, the Justice Department has filed a motion in the Southern District of Florida to unseal a search warrant and property receipt relating to a court approved search that the FBI conducted earlier this week,” Garland told the nation Thursday afternoon. “That search was a premises located in Florida, belonging to the former president.”
“The department did not make any public statements on the day of the search,” Garland added.
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Garland continued on to explain the DOJ’s decision in pushing to unseal the search warrant, noting that Trump and his attorneys confirmed the search and gave details into “the surrounding circumstances.”
“The property received is a document that federal law requires law enforcement agents to leave with the property owner,” Garland said. “The department filed the motion to make public the warrant it received in light of the former president’s public confirmation of the search, the surrounding circumstances and the substantial public interest in this matter.”
Trump, in a statement issued Monday after the FBI search, suggested the incident was politically motivated and noted that agents “even broke into” his safe. Trump’s son Eric Trump told Fox News that the raid was related to the DOJ’s investigation into the possible mishandling of documents.
“It is prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024, especially based on recent polls, and who will likewise do anything to stop Republicans and Conservatives in the upcoming Midterm Elections,” Trump wrote in the lengthy statement.
Trump, in a lengthy statement, says the FBI executed a raid on Mar-a-Lago today: pic.twitter.com/x2RwEEEGWD
— Shelby Talcott (@ShelbyTalcott) August 8, 2022
Up until Garland’s comments, much of the narrative being driven regarding the FBI raid was coming from the former president and his team – though they have not yet offered up a copy of the search warrant.
