Trump claims FBI took his passports during Mar-a-Lago raid

By Darren Lyn

HOUSTON, Texas (AA) - Former US President Donald Trump claimed Monday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) took his three passports during a raid of his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida last week as they searched his property for classified documents.

“In the raid by the FBI of Mar-a-Lago, they stole my three Passports (one expired), along with everything else,” Trump wrote on his social media platform. “This is an assault on a political opponent at a level never seen before in our Country. Third World!”

In addition to the passports Trump claimed were taken, the FBI seized boxes of documents -- many of them classified -- including records marked highly sensitive.

According to a search warrant released last Friday, the former president is under investigation for possibly violating the US Espionage Act, in addition to several other crimes.

"The country is in a very dangerous position," Trump said in an interview with Fox News Digital on Monday. "There is tremendous anger, like I've never seen before, over all of the scams, and this new one—years of scams and witch hunts, and now this."

"There has never been a time like this where law enforcement has been used to break into the house of a former president of the United States," Trump continued. "And there is tremendous anger in the country—at a level that has never been seen before, other than during very perilous times."

It is not clear why the FBI may have taken Trump's passports or why he apparently has three of them. Experts say it is possible that he could have had a second special issuance passport as a former US president.

A search warrant unsealed Friday indicates that the FBI is investigating Trump for violations of three federal laws, including the gathering, losing, or transmitting of defense information; the concealment, removal, or mutilation generally of official records; and destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations.

The warrant authorized agents to seize any related property, including documents, communications and "any government and/or Presidential Records created between January 20, 2017 and January 20, 2021."

The property receipt, made public alongside the warrant, says that in addition to 11 sets of classified materials that were taken away, FBI agents retrieved documents that included Trump's order granting clemency to political ally Roger Stone, a "leather-bound box of documents," two binders of photos, a potential presidential record, and information regarding the French president.

It did not specify the French leader but was likely referring to Emmanuel Macron, who was in office during Trump's term.

Under fire from Trump and his allies, Attorney General Merrick Garland defended the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago on Thursday in exceedingly rare comments on an ongoing investigation, saying he "personally approved" the decision to seek a search warrant and emphasizing that the Justice Department "does not take such decision lightly."