Donald Trump has regularly mishandled classified documents as president, his former press secretary has claimed after the FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago mansion in an apparent hunt for records he is accused of illegally taking when he left office to have.
Stephanie Grisham, a confidante of Donald and Melania Trump before she turned against them over the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol, said she saw him tear up documents during her time in the White House and put some in his pocket .
“The President of the United States did not handle classified documents properly,” she told CNN Monday night, hours after the FBI raided his Florida club in an apparent hunt for records that should have been turned over to the National Archives.
Trump’s Florida club was raided by agents with warrants Monday morning while the former president was in New York. He later found out about it before breaking the news to the world, calling it a “dark day” for America.
Stephanie Grisham (second right), Trump’s former press secretary, has claimed she saw him mistreat classified documents when he was president
Grisham spoke out after the FBI searched Trump’s Florida mansion, telling journalists they were looking for proprietary documents accused of him after he left the White House
Trump also likened the raid to Watergate — the raid coincidentally taking place on August 8, the same day Nixon resigned in 1974 at the height of that scandal.
Grisham, who served as Trump’s press secretary from July 2019 to April 2021, said after the raid that she “observed” the 45th president manhandling documents.
“I sat on a plane with him and watched him go through documents, throwing some away, tearing some up and putting some in his pocket,” she recalled.
“Because I remember thinking specifically, ‘Why are those going in his pocket?’
She went on to speculate about what might be in the documents the FBI was looking for in Mar-a-Lago, suggesting it would have to be “something big” to justify such a high-profile raid.
“I don’t think this is going to be just about letters,” Grisham said, referring to notes from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to Trump that were included in a series of notes released from Mar-a-Lago, according to the Washington Post were recovered back in January.
“I think it could be about military operations. That’s my speculation, I want to get that straight. But I could tell the former president thought they were cool or funny.
“We weren’t a White House that played by the rules. And I can tell you that dealing with classified information has not really impressed us, on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.”
Trump has called the raid a “dark day” for America, revealing agents searched his private safe but did not reveal if anything was taken
Trump supporters rallied outside of Mar-a-Lago to show their support following the crackdown as he announces a possible run for the presidency in 2024
Eric Trump accused Joe Biden of ordering the raid to discredit his father ahead of the 2024 race, but the White House denied any knowledge of it
The top-secret raid took place late Monday and was revealed by Trump himself, who later said his “beautiful house” was under siege by a “large group” of FBI agents on what he called a “dark day.” “ had been. for America.
The FBI has not publicly acknowledged the raid, but journalists have been informed it is linked to proprietary documents that Trump allegedly illegally took when he left office.
Fifteen boxes filled with such documents were turned over to the National Archives back in January under federal law requiring all records related to the President’s duties to be kept there during his term in office.
That transfer comes after consultations between the archives and Trump’s legal team, which claimed the documents were taken in error when the White House was emptied in a “hurry” while the election result was still in dispute.
Monday’s raid is believed to have taken place under a search warrant, although no government agency has said exactly what was being searched for.
Although the raid itself isn’t evidence of a crime, in order to get a warrant from a judge, agents would need to show “probable cause” that a crime was committed.
Given the high-profile nature of the raid, senior figures in the FBI and Justice Department probably should have agreed.
The FBI are believed to have arrived in Mar-a-Lago around 10 a.m. Monday and spent several hours searching the mansion before leaving with several boxes full of items
Investigations into the records are just one of several investigations Trump has faced during his tenure as president, his refusal to award the 2020 race to Biden and the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol by supporters who believed that the election had been stolen.
The Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into the events of Jan. 6, has accused hundreds of people of breaking into the Capitol that day and is set to investigate Trump’s involvement.
Meanwhile, the House Select Committee in Congress is conducting a series of hearings through January 6, questioning senior members of the Trump administration about attempts to overturn the election result.
Mike Pompeo, Trump’s former secretary of state and ally during his tenure, will speak this week alongside Douglas Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania who has helped lead efforts to contest that state’s election result.
The state of Georgia is also conducting a separate grand jury investigation into Trump’s efforts to challenge the election result there, while two separate investigations in New York are investigating Trump’s finances.