FBI was ‘prepared to use deadly force’ in Trump raid: Explosive new details in the Mar-a-Lago classified files probe are revealed… including where more documents were found
A new court filing unsealed Tuesday in Trump’s classified documents case found that federal agents were prepared to use “deadly force” when carrying out a raid on Mar-a-Lago in 2022.
That raid on the ex-president’s home ended with the FBI seizing hundreds of documents containing classified information.
Trump, 77, now faces criminal charges for mishandling top-secret documents brought to his Florida estate after he left office.
In the former president’s motion to challenge the legality of the FBI raid, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, the filing notes an “Operation Order” prepared for discovery that contained a “statement of policy” regarding “use of deadly force.” ‘
The filing states that the order states “for example, ‘Department of Justice law enforcement officers may use deadly force if necessary…'”
A photo included in the lawsuits filed by the Department of Justice on August 30, 2022, showing a collection of flagged documents seized during the August 8, 2022 FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago
It also states that “the officers intended to take a ‘Standard Issue Weapon.'[s]“Ammunition,” “Handcuffs,” and “medium and large bolt cutters,” but they were ordered to wear “unmarked polo or collared shirts” and “keep law enforcement equipment concealed.”
The officers began the raid on August 8, 2022 around 9:00 am and stayed until approximately 6:40 pm.
Trump’s legal team argued that the Mar-a-Lago raid was unconstitutional.
On Tuesday evening, Trump posted on Truth Social after leaving criminal court in New York. He was “shown reports that Crooked Joe Biden’s DOJ, in their illegal and unconstitutional raid on Mar-a-Lago, had authorized the FBI to use lethal (deadly) force.” .’
He also sent a fundraising email with the subject line “They were authorized to shoot me!”
The ex-president pleaded not guilty to 37 charges in the case, some of which carry a prison sentence of up to 20 years.
Trump is accused of hiring aides and lawyers to help him hide the documents officials requested from him.
Former President Trump speaks in Manhattan Criminal Court on May 21, 2024. He is charged in a separate case with mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House
Documents at Mar-a-Lago were moved from the building’s business center to a bathroom and shower in the Lake Room, according to the federal indictment against Donald Trump
FBI agents raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach in August 2022
Unsealed documents also revealed Tuesday that Trump’s lawyers found additional classified documents in the ex-president’s bedroom months after the August raid.
The revelation was detailed in an unsealed opinion from Judge Beryl Howell in March 2023, in which she found that prosecutors had presented sufficient evidence that Trump had mishandled classified documents.
The opinion states that even after the November 2022 raid, additional confidential documents were discovered in a rented storage space, in the Mar-a-Lago office in December 2022 and “apparently some time afterward in the former president’s own bedroom in Mar’. -a-Lago.’
The judge further wrote, “Specifically, no excuse is given for how the former president could have missed the confidentially marked documents he found in his own bedroom at Mar-a-Lago.”
Earlier this month, Trump-appointed District Judge Aileen Cannon postponed the secret documents trial indefinitely.
She mentioned a number of outstanding pre-trial issues that need to be resolved.