Rudy Giuliani says the Mar-a-Lago raid is part of an ongoing effort to nab Trump – and the boxes of documents were brought there because he wanted to keep them in a place as “safe” as the White House
- Giuliani said the administration wanted to hold Trump responsible for “taking and keeping secret documents.”
- He said the raid was part of a “conspiracy” against Trump that dates back to the Russia probe
- He described camp areas as “about as safe as they originally were.”
- Trump attorneys said search included bedroom, office and ‘storage area’
- The storage area is said to be near the Mar-a-Lago pool
Rudy Giuliani blasted the FBI over his Mar-a-Lago raid, calling it part of a “conspiracy” to nab Donald Trump — then he said boxes of government supplies being kept at the president’s private club in Florida are as safe as if they had been locked away in the White House.
“I think it’s all so obviously part of an ongoing, I hate to call it, conspiracy, but that’s what started in 2016,” Giuliani told the conservative Newsmax in an interview.
It was a reference to the Russia probe that began during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
He called the investigation an “insurgency” — during a week of testifying before a grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, in an probe into Trump’s election-busting efforts.
“They ended up with the riot that never happened and in which Trump had no role – even if he knew about it, let alone caused it,” said the former Trump attorney and former New York Mayor of New York, once a senior official of the Ministry of Justice.
“I hate to call it a conspiracy, but that’s what it is,” former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said after the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago
He then attempted to pick apart the potential centerpiece of the government’s investigation into possible misuse of classified information and obstruction, a day after a federal judge in West Palm Beach ordered the Justice Department to return a redacted version of the affidavit supporting the FBI’s search warrant.
“And now they want to blame him for taking and keeping secret documents,” Giuliani said.
“If you look at the Espionage Act, it’s not really about taking the documents,” he continued. “It’s about destroying them. Or hide them. Or give them to the enemy. It’s not about taking them and putting them in a place that’s about as safe as they were originally,” he said.
Giuliani told Newsmax the Espionage Act is “not really about taking the documents… It’s about destroying them.”
Giuliani was speaking for a week when he appeared under subpoena to testify before a grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia
The search warrant authorized the seizure of materials constituting “evidence, contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed in violation of 18 USC 793, 2071, or 1519” in reference to the 1917 statute.
It didn’t describe exactly where the footage was, but Trump’s attorneys said the search included a bedroom, an office and a storage area that was reported to be near one of the pools in Mar-a-Lago .
An important section of the law relates to national defense information and a person “who has either knowingly transmitted it to “any person who is not entitled to receive it” or “willfully withheld.”[] the same and fail[] deliver it upon request to any authorized United States official or employee.’
In June, a DOJ official reportedly visited the Mar-a-Lago storage room where documents were kept and requested that a lock be put in place as a security enhancement. The FBI picked the lock during the raid as agents obtained more boxes of documents beyond the 15 Trump had previously returned.
Giuliani also credited Trump’s return of the 15 boxes as proof of good faith, although the government says it obtained additional classified material during the search.
Trump “voluntarily returns them. I mean, they already voluntarily got 15 boxes back earlier this year,” Giuliani said.