Did they miss something?
According to the investigation over the retention of classified documents by former President Donald Trump, Trump had a locked closet and a secret room at Mar-a-Lago that FBI agents overlooked during their search of the residence.
Jack Smith, the special counsel investigating Trump, interviewed multiple witnesses about the two rooms, one described as a “hidden room” inside Trump’s bedroom; the other, a closet with a timed lock. Both were missed in their execution of the search warrant.
Sources say Smith’s team is considering the possibility that additional classified material Trump took with him from the White House may still be at Mar-a-Lago.
Per ABC News:
According to sources, some investigators involved in the case came to later believe that the closet, which was locked on the day of the search, should have been opened and checked.
As investigators would later learn, Trump allegedly had the closet’s lock changed while his attorney was in Mar-a-Lago’s basement, searching for classified documents in a storage room that he was told would have all such documents. Trump’s alleged efforts to conceal classified documents from both the FBI and his own attorney are a key part of Smith’s indictment against Trump in Florida.
Jordan Strauss, a former federal prosecutor and former national security official in the Justice Department, called the FBI’s alleged failure to search the closet “a bit astonishing.”
“You’re searching a former president’s house. You [should] get it right the first time,” Strauss told ABC News.
During the August 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago, FBI agents seized numerous boxes and over 100 documents marked classified.
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