The federal government has taken its investigation into former President Donald Trump to the next level.
According to a message posted by Trump’s Truth Social account Monday, the FBI seized Trump’s passports, presumably preventing Trump from leaving the country.
BREAKING pic.twitter.com/wQNNUmZct9
— Michael Austin (@mikeswriting) August 15, 2022
“Wow! In the raid by the FBI of Mar-a-Lago, they stole my three Passports (one expired), along with everything else,” Trump wrote.
“This is an assault on a political opponent at a level never seen before in our Country. Third World!”
According to the official search warrant, the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort on Aug. 8 looking for classified documents the former president may have taken with him upon leaving office.
EXCLUSIVE: Warrant and Prop… by Human Events
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The warrant revealed that documents with classification markings, records and other forms related to national security were to be seized in the raid.
In addition, law enforcement officials were to look for any evidence that such documents had been knowingly altered, destroyed or hidden.
Following the raid, in a Friday report, The Wall Street Journal reviewed a three-page list of objects seized by the FBI which reportedly included 11 sets of classified materials.
Whether or not the materials obtained in the raid were classified is up for debate, however.
According to a statement from Trump’s team obtained by Just the News on Saturday, all documents taken to the former president’s estate were declassified under a “standing order” by Trump while he was still president and had the authority to declassify documents as he pleased.
“As we can all relate to, everyone ends up having to bring home their work from time to time. American presidents are no different. President Trump, in order to prepare for work the next day, often took documents including classified documents from the Oval Office to the residence,” the statement read.
“He had a standing order that documents removed from the Oval Office and taken into the residence were deemed to be declassified.”
During an interview with Breitbart News, a former Department of Defense official under Trump Kash Patel also claimed that Trump had declassified the documents in question.
“Trump declassified whole sets of materials in anticipation of leaving government that he thought the American public should have the right to read themselves,” Petel said.
“The White House counsel failed to generate the paperwork to change the classification markings, but that doesn’t mean the information wasn’t declassified,” he continued. “I was there with President Trump when he said ‘We are declassifying this information.’”
“This story is just another disinformation campaign designed to break the public trust in a president that lived on transparency. It’s yet another way to attack Trump and say he took classified information when he did not.”
