Donald Trump claimed Monday his passports were “stolen” in last week’s FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, meaning he cannot leave the country.
He called it an “attack on a political opponent”.
‘Wow. In the FBI raid or Mar-a-Lago, they stole my three passports (one was expired) along with everything else. This is an attack on a political opponent on a level unprecedented in our country. Third world,” he wrote on his social media account Truth Social.
He likely has a regular blue passport issued to US citizens and a red diplomatic passport issued for official government travel. As President, he would have received a diplomatic passport.
But without a legal passport, Trump would not be able to travel outside of the United States.
It is unclear whether the passports were confiscated and whether this was because the former president is believed to be at risk of absconding.
Donald Trump claimed his passports were “stolen” in the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago last week
Trump and his family have accused President Joe Biden of ordering the raid.
The White House said the president learned about the raid from public reports.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said he “personally authorized” the raid. He gave no further details about the investigation, but said the Justice Department had requested the warrant and inventory be released due to the high level of public interest in the investigation.
And White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Sunday President Biden was not briefed at all.
“Not informed. We didn’t interfere,” she said on ABC’s This Week.
During Monday’s raid on Trump’s Florida home, FBI agents took 11 sets of classified documents, photographs and other files marked “top secret” from among boxes of items.
In total, FBI agents took away 27 boxes of documents, according to federal orders.
The inventory of items seized by the agents includes a few specific items, including an “Executive Grant of Clemency: Re Roger Jason Stone Jr” — a former Trump aide who was pardoned in the final days of Trump’s presidency — and “Info re: President of France.’
The list also includes more general terms such as “Miscellaneous Classified/TS/SCI Documents”. In the world of national security, the acronym “TS/SCI” generally refers to Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information – available only to those with the highest level of clearance.
Also listed are four sets of “top secret” documents, three sets of “secret” documents, and three sets of “confidential” documents, but the receipt offers no further information about what they contained.
Lawyers for Trump insist that as president he had the power to release the documents before leaving office.
Trump has also accused the FBI of taking attorney-client documents and demanding their return.
‘Oh cool! It has just been learned that the FBI, in its now-famous Mar-a-Lago raid, looted boxes of privileged material from “legal clients” and also privileged material from “executives” that they knowingly should not have taken,” Trump said on Sunday on Truth Social.
In all, FBI agents took 27 boxes of documents when it raided Mar-a-Lago last week, according to the federal order
Donald Trump, via Truth Social on Sunday, demanded that the FBI return to him documents they seized during Monday’s Mar-a-Lago raid, which contained material from “lawyers” and “privileged executives.”
The Receipt for Property lists items confiscated, including an “Executive Grant of Clemency: Re Roger Jason Stone Jr” – a former Trump aide who was pardoned in the final days of Trump’s presidency – “info re: President of France ‘ and a ‘handwritten note’
He said the FBI should consider his post on the alternative social media site as a formal request for the documents to be returned to his Palm Beach property.
“By having a copy of this TRUTH,” Trump wrote Sunday, “I respectfully request that these documents be returned immediately to the place from which they were taken.” Many Thanks!’
Monday’s raid was part of a longer investigation into documents Trump took when he left the White House.
Under the Presidential Records Act, all of these documents must be turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration at the end of each Presidential Administration.
The law made all presidential and vice presidential records the property of the federal government, with “custody, control and preservation” of the records being delegated to the National Archives when a president leaves office.
Earlier this year, Trump returned 15 boxes to the archives. But on Monday, agents searched storage rooms in Mar-a-Lago and areas of Trump’s private residence in a day-long search, removing more material.