I am going to seek to put to rest a lie that Donald J. Trump keeps repeating as it involves the FBI search for classified/top secret documents that the ex-president squirreled away illegally in his Florida home.
All set? Here goes.
Trump keeps saying that the FBI “raided” his home. It was no “raid.” The FBI worked with a federal judge to obtain a search warrant based on what it believes is “probable cause” that a crime took place. The feds sought the documents that Trump spirited out of the White House in violation of the Presidential Records Act that stipulates that official documents need to go to the National Archives.
When the FBI found the documents, the agents — in full view of Trump’s lawyers — spread them on the floor for picture-taking purposes. The ex-POTUS’s newest lie is that the feds spread the documents out to illustrate that Trump was so damn careless he would just toss ’em on the floor for the whole world to see.
No! The FBI was following standard operating evidence-gathering procedure. Trump never says the FBI picked the documents up and put them where agents found them: in the boxes that Trump’s team took from the White House to Florida.
As is always the case with this clown, the crowd that hears these lies cheers on the liar who spreads them, filling him with even more hubris to repeat them.
Disgraceful.