Tuesday, August 9, 2022

POLITICO NIGHTLY: How the FBI got the keys to Mar-a-Lago Primaries in Connecticut , Minnesota , Vermont and Wisconsin

ELECTION NIGHT — Keep up with tonight’s election results on POLITICO’s live pages for primaries in Connecticut , Minnesota , Vermont and Wisconsin .

Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort from above. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images

‘NO ORDINARY CASE’ — The late-breaking news Monday about the search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence shocked the political world . There is no obvious precedent in the nation’s history for the involuntary search of a former president’s home as part of a criminal probe by the Justice Department, so this was a surprising turn of events even for a man who has managed to test many political boundaries since announcing his candidacy seven years ago.

How did this come about?

The Justice Department has reportedly been investigating the potential mishandling and improper retention of classified information at Trump’s residence since the spring, after the National Archives disclosed that it had recovered 15 boxes of documents from Mar-a-Lago in January that should have been provided to the agency upon Trump’s departure from the White House. The inquiry appears to be legally and factually distinct from the Justice Department’s other investigative work concerning Trump’s conduct prior to and during the siege of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

There are at least a couple of criminal statutes that may be at issue. One of them prohibits the improper removal of classified information from government facilities. Another statute targets the improper destruction of government records — a subject that already happened to be back in the news this week based on additional reporting suggesting that Trump may have flushed White House documents down the toilet.

Of course, criminal investigations into the mishandling of classified information are not exactly unprecedented . During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump himself repeatedly led chants of “lock her up” in order to capitalize on the Justice Department’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of an email server as secretary of State during the Obama administration. (That investigation ended without charges .)

Still, there is no obvious precedent for an investigation concerning a former president’s handling of government documents. In theory at least, any such investigation could be complicated by a president’s broad declassification authority. Thus far at least, Trump has provided no meaningful reason to believe that he properly declassified any classified material that he may have taken to Mar-a-Lago.

What does it mean to get a search warrant for someone’s property?

In order to get a warrant to search someone’s property, the Justice Department has to make an application to a federal judge that demonstrates that there is probable cause to believe that evidence of one or more crimes is on the premises. This is almost always an ex parte application — meaning that the government is communicating with the court without the involvement of a lawyer representing the party whose property will be searched — even in routine criminal investigations. As a result, the information tends to be one-sided in nature, but the judge is required to exercise independent legal judgment as to whether the government has met its legal burden.

The warrant provides a legal basis for the search but is not necessarily a referendum on the conduct of the owner. Technically, the person whose property is being searched does not need to be a target or even subject of the criminal probe, though this does tend to be the case.

The phrase “probable cause” also sometimes lends itself to understandable confusion. It does not mean that the government has shown that it is more likely than not that there is evidence of a crime. The standard generally just requires law enforcement officers to establish that there is a reasonable basis to believe that there is evidence of a crime on the premises, and in the ordinary case, that can be a relatively low threshold as a technical matter. This helps to explain why there are sometimes high-profile searches pursuant to warrants that do not yield criminal charges .

Of course, this is no ordinary case. We are talking about a former president and potential 2024 candidate, so it is fair to assume that the government sought to establish a more robust basis for the search than it otherwise would have if the owner of the property were literally anyone but Trump. Exactly what that was remains to be seen, but it is now one of the most important questions in American politics.

Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at ankush.khardori@gmail.com .

STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today .

WHAT'D I MISS?

— Biden administration authorizes emergency monkeypox vaccine strategy: The FDA issued an emergency use authorization today that allows health care providers to administer a fraction of a dose of the Jynneos monkeypox vaccine to adults between layers of skin instead of beneath it. Two doses of the vaccine four weeks apart will still be required, but the new method will increase the number of doses available by “up to five-fold,” according to the FDA. There is limited data supporting the method’s efficacy, indicating how much pressure the Biden administration is under now to stop the spreading virus.

— Biden ends slog on semiconductor bill with signature: President Joe Biden signed the CHIPS and Science bill into law today, authorizing $52 billion in subsidies for semiconductor production and boosting funding for research. The bill’s signing represents nearly two years of legislative work from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), co-sponsors of the legislation that began its path to Biden’s desk as the Endless Frontiers Act in 2021.

— House panel can demand Trump’s tax returns, appeals court rules: In a unanimous ruling, a three-judge panel for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that the Ways and Means Committee’s request complied with the law, that it was made in support of potential legislation on matters like the Presidential Audit Program and that the request did not violate the separation of powers — particularly given Trump’s status as a former president. The ruling is the latest legal victory for the House against Trump, though it will likely be appealed to the full bench of that appeals court or the Supreme Court.

— GOP polls show House battlefield stretching into double-digit Biden districts: Four surveys conducted in late July reveal close races in open seats in Oregon, Colorado and California that Biden carried by between 11 and 15 points in 2020. Taken all together, GOP operatives view the data as a sign that Biden’s sinking approval numbers could drag Democratic candidates down enough to bring deep blue turf into reach.

— Grand jury declines to indict woman in Emmett Till lynching: A Mississippi grand jury has declined to indict the white woman whose accusation set off the lynching of Black teenager Emmett Till nearly 70 years ago , most likely closing the case that shocked a nation and galvanized the modern civil rights movement. After hearing more than seven hours of testimony from investigators and witnesses, a Leflore County grand jury last week determined there was insufficient evidence to indict Carolyn Bryant Donham on charges of kidnapping and manslaughter, Leflore County District Attorney Dewayne Richardson said in a news release today.

INTRODUCING POWER SWITCH: The energy landscape is profoundly transforming. Power Switch is a daily newsletter that unlocks the most important stories driving the energy sector and the political forces shaping critical decisions about your energy future, from production to storage, distribution to consumption. Don’t miss out on Power Switch, your guide to the politics of energy transformation in America and around the world. SUBSCRIBE TODAY .

AROUND THE WORLD

BRINKMANSHIP — China has used House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan as a pretext to prepare for an invasion of the self-ruled territory , Taipei’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said today.

Speaking during a press conference in Taipei, Wu said: “China has used the drills in its military playbook to prepare for the invasion of Taiwan,” adding: “China’s real intention is to alter the status quo in the Taiwan Strait and entire region.”

Tensions in the region surged on Monday, after Beijing announced more military drills in the seas and airspace around Taiwan, a day after the scheduled end of its exercises in the area, writes Camille Gijs .

But Washington has sought to downplay the risk of escalation. In his first comments on the issue since Pelosi’s trip, Biden on Monday said: “I’m not worried,” before adding: “I’m concerned that they’re moving as much as they are. But I don’t think they’re going to do anything more.”

NIGHTLY NUMBER

6 months

The amount of time Wall Street’s top derivatives regulator has given one of the country’s only political betting markets to live. PredictIt — an 8-year-old trading hub where thousands of Washington insiders and politically savvy investors wager on everything from whether Biden will be his party’s 2024 nominee to who will win the San Jose mayoral election — will shut down in the U.S. in February after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said it failed to comply with market rules .

PARTING WORDS

Chris Christie, one of the few potential Republican 2024 candidates who did not immediately defend Trump in the aftermath of the Mar-a-Lago search. | Alex Wong/Getty Images

MISSION MAR-A-LAGO: FALLOUT — The search of Trump’s Florida compound by federal agents Monday has the former president’s base rallying to stand with him — including many of his potential rivals for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, write Matt Berg , Marissa Martinez and Matt Dixon .

While Chris Christie and Tim Scott were among few exceptions, the reaction among potential Republican presidential candidates was to defend Trump. That included former Vice President Mike Pence, who has broken with Trump in several ways this year amid fallout from the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, before which Trump pressured Pence not to certify the 2020 election results.

Here’s a round-up of some of their responses:

Former Vice President Mike Pence: “No former President of the United States has ever been subject to a raid of their personal residence in American history. After years where FBI agents were found to be acting on political motivation during our administration, the appearance of continued partisanship by the Justice Department must be addressed. Yesterday’s action undermines public confidence in our system of justice and Attorney General Garland must give a full accounting to the American people as to why this action was taken and he must do so immediately.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis: “The raid on [Mar-a-Lago] is another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the regime’s political opponents, while people like Hunter Biden get treated with kid gloves.”

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem: “The FBI raid on President Trump’s home is an unprecedented political weaponization of the Justice Department. They’ve been after President Trump as a candidate, as President, and now as a former President. Using the criminal justice system in this manner is un-American.”

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin: “A stunning move by the DOJ and FBI. This same DOJ labeled parents in Loudoun County as terrorists and failed to enforce federal law to protect Justices in their homes. Selective, politically motivated actions have no place in our democracy.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott: “ This is next-level Nixonian. Never before has the country seen an Administration go to such extent to use the levers of government to target a former President and political rival. This weaponizes power to squelch dissent. Such abuses must have limits.”

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie: “I trust that it had to have been and I hope that they understood the implications, both from a policy perspective for the Justice Department and politically, of doing something really as unprecedented as raiding the home or office of a former president,” adding that the search of Trump’s safe was “fair game.”

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott: “We need to let this play out and see exactly what happens. But we should have been stunned and surprised and shocked with what happened yesterday.”

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RSN: FOCUS | Inside the City of the Damned: What's Going On in Putin Occupied Kherson Has Been Hidden From the World.

09 August 22

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FOCUS | Inside the City of the Damned: What's Going On in Putin Occupied Kherson Has Been Hidden From the World.
David Patrikarakos, The Daily Mail
Patrikarakos writes: "A cloud of thick smoke hangs over the occupied city of Kherson in Ukraine. Its very stench is evidence of Russian war crimes, on a scale almost too sickening to contemplate."

Acloud of thick smoke hangs over the occupied city of Kherson in Ukraine. Its very stench is evidence of Russian war crimes, on a scale almost too sickening to contemplate.

The smoke comes from mobile incinerators that are running night and day. Vladimir Putin's paranoid soldiers are burning the corpses of Ukrainian citizens tortured and murdered on suspicion of helping the resistance.

And they are dispatching the bodies of their own comrades too — hundreds of them. The Russians are killed by the constant pounding of Ukrainian shells from artillery placements surrounding the city and by highly organised, secret units of freedom fighters.

They are even killed by gangs of youths armed with knives who set upon drunken Russians and stab them.

The incinerators fill Kherson with the reek of charred flesh. There is no mistaking the smell and it adds to the pervasive sense of horror in this Black Sea port. It is a living hell.

I am in contact with pro-democracy activists inside the city who have managed — for the first time since the start of the occupation — to get information out, describing the situation as it deteriorates daily, so that the world can finally have some idea of their plight.

To identify my sources in any way would be to condemn them to certain death. All I can say is that this information is reliable and comes from Kherson residents fiercely opposed to Russian occupation, who are risking everything to reveal the truth.

They say many of the Russian troops are drunk all of the time.

Arms, ammunition, kit and even food are in short supply for Putin's blundering army — but vodka is always available in abundance.

These soldiers are rounded up from the poorest regions of Putin's empire, far away from St Petersburg and Moscow. No one in the main cities wants to have their sons sent to be butchered in occupied territory.

Instead, bribes are often offered in rural districts, where conditions are little different from the world of Tolstoy's peasants. Many people are illiterate and generally ignorant of international news. They live largely without sanitation, in poverty and disease.

These families don't want to send their young men to war either. But they cannot afford to refuse the government payouts.

And consequently, men from these regions are treated by the Kremlin as utterly disposable, lives without worth. Yet still, to return them to their villages in bodybags would be considered a military embarrassment — as well as an unwarranted expense — and so their remains are simply incinerated. Worthless in life, worthless in death.

When the Russians first occupied places such as Bucha, outside Kyiv, they were almost apologetic to Ukrainian citizens. On a 'special military operation' they'd been told would be over soon, these young men didn't really want to be there. In an odd way, the invaders were almost pathetically friendly.

But then their comrades started to die. And the mood changed.

Now in Kherson, Russians are hunted by snipers, ambushed and bombed. Thanks to consignments of Western arms, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) has the power to inflict serious damage.

The weapon the Russians fear most is the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), supplied by the U.S. and capable of firing barrages of missiles from the back of an armoured lorry. Both manoeuvrable and lethally accurate, these rocket launchers are effectively unstoppable. They can wipe out an ammunition dump or a column of tanks in one hit.

I'm told that many of the rural Russian soldiers, who have never encountered such advanced military technology, are petrified: 'They talk of the HIMARS almost as children do of dragons.'

The Ukrainians are exploiting this advantage. The last consignment of American HIMARS missiles was expected to sustain the AFU for a month. But they blazed off the whole lot in three days — and with devastating effects.

At the other end of the fightback are the insurgent youths, ambushing Russians with their daggers. Ukraine's government does not want to admit this is happening, perhaps because it exposes how desperate the defence has become. But the Russians will not acknowledge it either, because they are ashamed by the damage these youngsters are inflicting.

Groups with knives, sometimes a handful and sometimes a marauding gang, attack Russians wherever they can — slashing them, stabbing them, cutting their throats if they get the chance.

Their fury reflects the hatred of ordinary Ukranians for the invaders. Putin's continued pretence that people in the coastal cities have welcomed his army as liberators could not be further from the truth.

At the outset of the war, last February, some older Ukrainians with rose-tinted nostalgia for the Soviet Union did have sympathy for the Russian cause. But not any more.

The barbaric obliteration of Mariupol stunned people of all ages. It was unforgivable. Above all, it convinced Ukrainians who were in any doubt that the Kremlin would stop at nothing to conquer their land — even genocide.

Some older children will understand a little of the complex politics and history involved. But all of them know what squads of drunken Russians are doing to their parents' homes.

On the pretence of rooting out resistance cells, the soldiers break down doors and march into houses at any hour. They torture and rape the inhabitants, and kill them. Property is destroyed or looted.

These are not isolated incidents. It is going on all over Kherson — every day, every night. The anger this unleashes in all the inhabitants, including the very youngest, is palpable.

When shells fired from outside the city by the AFU hit residential areas, people don't resent it. To some, for whom the daily evil has become unbearable, death by collateral damage is a price well worth paying.

Special hatred is reserved for collaborators, those who assist the Russians. They are killed by the resistance, but not before their death sentence has been publicly proclaimed.

Photocopied leaflets, printed in secret, are distributed throughout the city. Faces of suspected collaborators are reproduced from grainy photographs, and their names exposed.

The last hours for those condemned must be sheer terror. Sophisticated car bombs have been used to carry out the executions — effective, dramatic and a potent statement of how well-trained and organised the resistance has become.

The latest batch of leaflets showed not only faces of collaborators but maps of Kherson, highlighting the advances of the AFU — armed with 'dragon' missiles — in a bid to demoralise the Russians and any traitors.

To outsiders, it might seem difficult to understand why anyone would want to collaborate with the thuggish occupiers of this city.

But life in war is never simple. Kremlin high command has ordered that residents must have Russian passports and papers, or face punitive restrictions. To keep their jobs, access healthcare or simply to avoid being arrested as they queue for food in the street, some people will feel they have no choice but to comply.

In the neighbouring city of Mykolaiv, still under Ukrainian control, Russian strikes have cut off the water supply.

This is a city of almost half a million people, the size of Liverpool, and it has no running water. Thankfully, the government is able to send in tankers of drinking water, and people queue for hours each day with plastic bottles to collect their ration.

But if the Russians were to cut off the water in Kherson, the AFU could not get in. The city would die of thirst.

Nonetheless, both sides now live in constant terror of what their enemy will do.

The Russians know they have only the most precarious hold on Kherson and will probably be driven out in the end, whether that takes weeks or years. Ukrainian surrender is never going to happen.

That is why Putin's soldiers are using incinerators. Mass graves leave behind evidence of war crimes. By burning the bodies, they destroy the evidence.

British defence secretary Ben Wallace warned back in February, before the invasion, that this could be Russia's unofficial policy. The Ministry of Defence released footage of a mobile crematorium, mounted on a lorry and capable of 'evaporating' corpses, to use the terminology of the MoD.

These lorries are built by a St Petersburg company called Tourmaline, whose website claims they are for the destruction of hazardous biological waste.

'It's a very chilling side effect,' said Mr Wallace, 'of how the Russians view their forces.

'Being a soldier, knowing that trundling behind you is a way to evaporate you if you are killed in battle probably says everything you need to know about the Russian regime.'

But, of course, it is not just Russian bodies being burned. And how many of these lorries are now in Kherson, my sources cannot say. But there are certainly enough to create a perpetual smog over the city.

Even working 24-hours-a-day, the incinerators might not be able to dispose of all the dead. When the Russians retreated from the town of Bucha in April, a mass grave of hundreds of bodies was discovered. Many of the dead had their hands bound behind their backs, and scores had been tortured.

Not all the victims of civilian slaughter were buried. Troops left hundreds more strewn in the streets. Photographs of the carnage provoked a worldwide outcry. But even those hideous scenes could not compare with the aftermath of the destruction of Mariupol in March. Satellite photographs showed trenches that could conceal an estimated 9,000 bodies. Witnesses said the dead were buried in layers, across an area the size of three football pitches.

When Kherson is finally liberated, who knows what fresh horrors we will uncover.

However the Russians try to disguise it, this is mass murder of civilians on a scale not seen in Europe since World War II.

Britain has proved one of Ukraine's most stalwart allies throughout this war, both by offering shelter to refugees at home and supplying weapons abroad.

Boris Johnson has been hailed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for his 'leadership and charisma' and thanked for his support 'from the first day of the Russian terror'.

Special Coverage: Ukraine, A Historic Resistance
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RSN: FOCUS: Olivia Nuzzi | What's in Trump's Safe the FBI Just Raided?

09 August 22

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FOCUS: Olivia Nuzzi | What's in Trump's Safe the FBI Just Raided?
Olivia Nuzzi, New York Magazine
Nuzzi writes: "When Donald Trump announced Monday that the FBI had raided Mar-a-Lago, looking for classified materials taken from the White House to the Florida estate and private club where he claims his legal residence, he mentioned as an aside the matter of a safe."

When Donald Trump announced Monday that the FBI had raided Mar-a-Lago, looking for classified materials taken from the White House to the Florida estate and private club where he claims his legal residence, he mentioned as an aside the matter of a safe. “Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before,” he said, adding that, after “cooperating” with all relevant agencies, the “unannounced raid” was proof of “prosecutorial misconduct” from a criminal-justice system weaponized by his political enemies. “Such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries. Sadly, America has now become one of those Countries, corrupt at a level not seen before. They even broke into my safe!”

Earlier Monday, Axios published photos that confirmed a report from Maggie Haberman’s upcoming book, Confidence Man, that Trump had flushed documents down toilets in the White House. With this in mind, I called a few former Trump aides to see what they remembered about his secure storage methods. Had he talked about his safe? Had anyone seen it? Was it gold?

During a renovation at Mar-a-Lago, one former staffer said, the safe stuck out amid furniture and personal belongings moved from Trump’s bedroom or office. “It wasn’t like a huge one from old western movies,” this person said. It was just, well, a safe that belonged to Donald Trump. It was hard to miss, even if it didn’t seem all that significant. “I don’t know, black? Silver? I saw it for a second, it registered in my brain, and I was on my way.”

Michael Cohen, the reformed Trump fixer, said he couldn’t speak for Florida. “At Trump Tower, the only person who had access to the locked” — he hesitated; “you can call it a safe, you can call it locked file cabinets, and so on — was Matthew Calamari,” Trump’s former head of security (nicknamed “Matty the Squid” by the writer Matt Labash). Cohen said he didn’t know the specifics. “There was a safe down on Matt’s floor in a closed room, from what I understand. I never saw it.” Cohen said he couldn’t remember which floor Calamari worked on. I asked if it was the 24th floor, where many Trump Organization employees, including the Trump children, kept offices. “Lower than 24,” Cohen said. The fifth floor? “No, that’s where they did The Apprentice.” (The old reality-show studio then served as the headquarters of the 2016 campaign.) “Not 26,” Cohen said, referring to the floor where Trump kept his own office. There was a commotion in the background. “Hey,” Cohen said. “Can I call you back?”

Reached for comment, Calamari hung up on me.

But another former Trump staffer did remember something from 2015. “We were talking about him running for president, and he was saying he was serious,” this person said. Trump was scheduled to stop in Louisiana before flying out of the country. On the 24th floor of Trump Tower, two staffers waited on the boss. “He comes down and he goes, ‘Shit, I have to go to the safe,’” this person said. “He comes down with one of those ‘TRUMP-MAR-A-LAGO’ bags — downstairs, if you bought a tie or something at the Trump store, you’d get a nice fancy shopping bag like you’d get at Saks — with about $50,000 in cash and six containers of white Tic Tacs. And he was going through the border. I know he didn’t declare that to customs!”

When the Access Hollywood tape came out, this person said, the image of the Tic Tacs came roaring back. Before Trump says “grab ’em by the pussy,” he talks about the mints: “I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”

The former staffer, who said Trump always carried cash, assumed the safe had ten times the amount in the shopping bag at any given time. “He wants to travel with cash; he doesn’t like to use credit cards. Think about Stormy, etc.,” as in Daniels, whom Trump (via Cohen) paid to keep quiet about an affair. “He was always a big tipper too — not $50,000 in tips, but he would give the waiters and the waitresses $100 each.” Staffers got tipped, too. From the shopping bag, Trump grabbed $1,500 and handed it over. “For doing a good job,” the former staffer said.

Maybe Trump’s problem is he’s just too generous. On Monday night, Eric Trump defended his father during an appearance with Sean Hannity. “My father never got so much as a speeding ticket,” he said, though Trump’s preference for chauffeured limousines is well documented. And: “He didn’t even have anything in the safe!”

Special Coverage: Ukraine, A Historic Resistance
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Trump finally loses six-year battle over his taxes

HEY! tRumpers! Remember when Daffy Don told ya that he'd produce his TAX RETURNS? LIAR IN CHIEF! What's he hiding?

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Appeals court signs off on House committee request for Trump's tax records
The House Ways and Means Committee can obtain former President Donald Trump's tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service, a federal appeals court ruled 3-0 Tuesday. On Twitter, the committee said it expects to receive the requested tax returns and audit files "immediately." … [more]

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People Are Sharing a 2016 Sarah Huckabee Sanders Tweet After FBI Searches Trump's Mar-a-Lago Resort "When you're attacking FBI agents because you're under criminal investigation, you're losing," Huckabee Sanders wrote in Nov. 2016 By Virginia Chamlee Published on August 9, 2022

People Are Sharing a 2016 Sarah Huckabee Sanders Tweet After FBI Searches Trump's Mar-a-Lago Resort

"When you're attacking FBI agents because you're under criminal investigation, you're losing," Huckabee Sanders wrote in Nov. 2016

Virginia Chamlee

Published on August 9, 2022

A 2016 tweet written by Sarah Huckabee Sanders is making the rounds just hours after Donald Trump confirmed that his Mar-a-Lago home was searched by the FBI executing a federal search warrant on Monday.

"When you're attacking FBI agents because you're under criminal investigation, you're losing," Huckabee Sanders wrote in Nov. 2016, in reference to the FBI's probe of Hillary Clinton's emails, which was ongoing at the time.

Just weeks before the 2016 presidential election, federal agents obtained a warrant to begin reviewing some 650,000 emails that were discovered on a laptop used by top Clinton aide Huma Abedin and belonging to her estranged husband, ex-congressman Anthony Weiner.

The probe was ultimately resolved after agents reviewed the emails for classified information, and no charges were filed.

But like Huckabee Sanders — who served as White House press secretary early in Trump's term — many Republicans at the time criticized Clinton for using a private email server during her time as secretary of state.

Speaking on Fox News, Huckabee Sanders (who is now an Arkansas gubernatorial candidate) said in 2015: "There's a protocol that she didn't follow."

"There's also some legal issues about whether or not it's a good idea to store top secret information … on a personal server in a personal home away from all the firewalls that the government would provide," Huckabee Sanders said at the time.

Many on Twitter pointed out the hypocrisy of Huckabee Sanders' 2016 tweet as now, some seven years later, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has executed a warrant at the home of 76-year-old Trump (news that Huckabee Sanders responded to with a new tweet, lambasting Democrats for what she called "a total abuse of power," even as current FBI Director Christopher Wray was appointed by Trump).

Trump himself announced the news of the Monday search in a statement sent via email to his supporters, explaining that his "beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents," declaring it "prosecutorial misconduct."

The onetime Apprentice star added: "They even broke into my safe!"

The reason for the warrant remains unclear, though the search comes months after federal government officials went to Florida to retrieve 15 boxes of documents and other items from the former president — which the agency said should have been handed over at the end of his time in office.

A February statement from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) said that a month earlier, the office "arranged for the transport from the Trump Mar-a-Lago property in Florida to the National Archives of 15 boxes that contained Presidential records, following discussions with President Trump's representatives in 2021."

NARA said at the time that more items could be discovered. "Former President Trump's representatives have informed NARA that they are continuing to search for additional Presidential records that belong to the National Archives," the agency said in a statement. "As required by the Presidential Records Act (PRA), these records should have been transferred to NARA from the White House at the end of the Trump Administration in January 2021."

Trump was not in Florida at the time of the FBI search on Monday, which appeared to be focused on his office and personal quarters, CNN reported. The FBI did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.

A source who was present at Mar-a-Lago at the time of the raid tells PEOPLE, "The mood was pure shock."

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