Everything we know so far about the FBI's Mar-a-Lago raid
What's in the box?


There are a lot of opinions about Monday's FBI search of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club, and a little bit of confirmation from Trump's lawyers about what the FBI agents were looking for. But few people know what prompted the high-stakes search or the severity of Trump's potential legal jeopardy.
The FBI and Justice Department are staying mum about their raid, as required during active investigations, but "they are not the only ones in possession of relevant information," Politico's Kyle Cheney writes. In fact, "Trump is in perhaps the best position to reveal more details about what transpired on Monday."
"The former president has access to the full inventory of items that federal investigators were seeking as well as what was taken from his estate during the search," Politico reports. "He or his lawyers were almost certainly presented with a copy of the search warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago — though not the underlying affidavit or other supplemental materials." CNN's Elie Honig has more details.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Trump is the one who publicly disclosed the FBI raid, and his lawyer Christina Bobb, who was at Mar-a-Lago during Monday's search, told Real America's Voice on Tuesday that investigators said they were "looking for classified information that they think should not have been removed from the White House, as well as presidential records."
"Sooner or later, the Justice Department and Mr. Trump will have to clarify the substance of what has happened," Federation of American Scientists open-records advocate Steven Aftergood told Politico. "Then we will know, was there a real violation of the law or was this some kind of speculative adventure. As far as I can tell, the FBI is not prone to the kind of — to what members of Congress have called a banana republic–like invasion. That doesn't happen, especially with a court order."
In lieu of explaining why the FBI took the risky step of executing a search warrant at his property, Trump is fund-raising off the raid and, one adviser told The Washington Post, he "sounded buoyed by the development, bragging about how many Republicans were supporting him publicly" and arguing "the search would help him politically in the end." The court of public opinion may eventually have enough facts to render a verdict, but in the court of law, the Post says, Trump's legal team is seeking recommendations for a really good criminal defense lawyer.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
-
Big, beautiful bill: Supercharging ICE
Feature With billions in new funding, ICE is set to expand its force of agents and build detention camps capable of holding more than 100,000 people
-
Deportations: Citizens could be next
Feature the Trump is expanding denaturalization efforts, targeting naturalized citizens and birthright citizenship
-
Ukraine: Trump's mixed messages
Feature Trump reverses a Pentagon freeze on Patriot missiles to Ukraine as Russia ramps up air attacks
-
Supreme Court: Ceding more power to Trump?
Feature SCOTUS has given Trump a victory by ending nationwide injunctions, limiting judges' power to block presidential orders
-
The Pam Bondi and Dan Bongino schism threatens Trump's DOJ
In the Spotlight Two MAGA partisans find themselves on either end of a growing scandal over Jeffrey Epstein and his ties to White House officials
-
Secret Service 'failures' on Trump shooting
Speed Read Two new reports detail security breakdowns that led to attempts on the president's life
-
Trump uses tariffs to upend Brazil's domestic politics
IN THE SPOTLIGHT By slapping a 50% tariff on Brazil for its criminal investigation into Bolsonaro, the Trump administration is brazenly putting its fingers on the scales of a key foreign election
-
'Trump's authoritarian manipulation of language'
Instant Opinion Vienna has become a 'convenient target for populists' | Opinion, comment and editorials of the day