“They even broke into my safe!” : Donald Trump announces that his residence in Florida has been raided by the FBI

Former US President Donald Trump announced on Monday that his famous Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago, had been “searched” by the federal police (FBI).

"Our nation is living in dark times, my beautiful home, Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is under siege and has been raided and occupied by numerous FBI agents," he said in a statement, claiming to be the victim of "political persecution".

“After working and cooperating with relevant government agencies, this unannounced search of my home was neither necessary nor appropriate,” he said.

"They even broke into my safe!"

“, was indignant Donald Trump.

Contacted by AFP, the FBI, which has not yet confirmed the search, declined to comment.

The Republican did not indicate the reasons for this police operation.

It is linked, directly or indirectly, to several ongoing legal cases.

The intervention would concern the potential mishandling of classified documents, which had been sent to Mar-a-Lago, a source familiar with the matter told the Washington Post.

The way the billionaire managed his official documents when he was at the White House is at the heart of several investigations.

The former president is accused of having deliberately neglected some of his files before their obligatory transmission to the American National Archives.

This federal agency had asked the American justice to open an investigation into these facts, according to several American media.

Trump would not have been allowed to take archives home

She had to recover in Florida fifteen boxes of documents that Donald Trump had taken with him when he left Washington in January 2021. In these boxes, letters from Barack Obama and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, a map of the States States which had been the subject of heated exchanges with the American weather service, but also, according to the Washington Post, several documents marked "secret-defense".

The National Archives assure that the Republican had no right to leave with these boxes: under a 1978 law, any American president must transmit all of his e-mails, letters and other working documents. to this agency, responsible for keeping them.

White House staff also routinely discovered sheaves of papers clogging toilets, and suspected the president of wanting to get rid of documents, according to a forthcoming book by a star New York Times reporter.

A parliamentary committee is also seeking to shed light on the role the billionaire played in the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. That day, hundreds of his supporters had sown violence and chaos inside of Congressional headquarters, delaying the certification of Joe Biden's presidential victory.

The Justice Department is investigating the attack, but has not yet brought charges against the former president.

At the end of July, the Minister of Justice Merrick Garland had not however ruled out this possibility.

“We intend to hold to account whoever is criminally responsible for (their role in) the events around January 6, in any attempt to interfere with the legal transfer of power from one administration to another. ", he said.

Finally, two investigations, one civil and the other criminal, are being conducted in New York on suspicion of financial fraud within the Trump Organization.

Donald Trump, still very popular among Republicans, is flirting more and more openly with the idea of ​​running for president in 2024.