By Zoe Richards -
NBC News
Former President Donald Trump on Friday denied a Washington Post report that, among other things, FBI agents were looking for classified documents related to nuclear weapons when they searched his residence at Mar-a-Lago.
On his Truth Social network, Trump said that "nuclear weapons are a hoax, just like Russia, Russia was a hoax," referring to special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into his 2020 election campaign's ties to the Kremlin.
The former president described as "corrupt" the agents who searched his house on Monday.
Trump during a golf tournament in New Jersey in July. Seth Wenig / AP
The aforementioned newspaper does not clarify whether the alleged nuclear documents were linked to the United States or to another country.
It is also not yet known if the agency found the papers it was looking for in the registry.
[A man armed with an AR-15 breaks into an FBI office in Ohio and fires a nail gun at federal personnel]
The information (which NBC News has not been able to verify so far) was released Thursday just hours after Attorney General Merrick Garland said he "personally approved" the request for a warrant to search Trump's Florida home and that the Department of Justice had presented a motion to the judge to make that court order public, in the face of political pressure.
He also asked that the list of what agents found inside Trump's property be released, according to Garland.
The FBI was searching Mar-a-Lago for documents on nuclear weapons, according to The Washington Post
Aug. 12, 202200:22
The Justice Department's motion does not cover the statement of probable cause, in which the FBI told the judge the justification for searching Mar-a-Lago would not be made public.
Trump was due to return 15 boxes of documents this year that the National Archives and Records Administration says were improperly taken from the White House in January 2021.
Before the FBI raid, Trump was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury to turn over confidential documents that the government believed he took with him on his way out of the White House, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News.
[FBI director denounces threats against agency after Mar-a-Lago search]
Another source confirmed an earlier Wall Street Journal report that "someone familiar" with the documents inside Mar-a-Lago tipped detectives there may be secret files at Trump's mansion that he hadn't turned over, which led to the search on Monday.
Garland himself suggested Thursday that Trump had not turned over all the material the Justice Department was seeking.
The New York Times reported Thursday that federal agents searched Mar-a-Lago because the documents that had not been returned were particularly sensitive to national security, citing two sources with knowledge of the documents.
Prosecutor Merrick Garland reveals that he himself approved a search of Trump's house in Florida
Aug. 11, 202200:41
Justice Bruce Reinhart said in a court order Thursday that Justice Department officials will meet with Trump's attorneys and determine whether the former president intends to oppose the release of the search warrant and the list of the items recovered from his property, but made it clear Thursday night that he would "encourage" its publication.
“Not only will I not oppose the release of documents related to the unwarranted and unnecessary un-American break-in of my Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida, but I will go one step further by ASKING for the immediate release of those documents. Trump wrote in a statement.
The Justice Department must file a notice before 3 p.m. Eastern time this Friday to formally notify the judge of the Trump legal team's intentions.