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Calls are growing for the Department of Justice to release information on its Monday raid at former President Trump’s Florida home, as the agency remains silent on the unprecedented move two days later.
“The country deserves a thorough and immediate explanation of what led to the events of Monday,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Tuesday. “Attorney General Garland and the Department of Justice should already have provided answers to the American people and must do so immediately.”
McConnell was joined in demanding an explanation from the DOJ by several other top Senate Republicans, former Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, former Vice President Mike Pence, House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Mike Turner, R-Ohio, and many more.
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Republicans – and some Democrats, like former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo – are calling on the Justice Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland to release information on its Monday raid of former President Trump’s home.
(Photographer: Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Trump announced on Monday that his palatial Florida residence had been raided. Sources told Fox News Digital the search was in connection with classified materials that Trump took with him from his time as president. Sources also said National Archives and Records Administration referred the case to the Justice Department, which recovered 15 boxes of classified materials from the home.
A source familiar told Fox News that the raid occurred early Monday morning. The source said agents brought a “safe cracker” and cracked a “relatively new” safe in Mar-a-Lago. The source told Fox News there was “nothing in it.”
A raid on a former president’s property by the Justice Department has not happened before in American history. With many in the GOP leery of the DOJ and FBI after instances of political bias and alleged broken protocols in past investigations of Trump, several Republicans vocally said their suspicious of the department’s motives.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said that the Biden administration should release information on the raid of former President Trump’s home in a Tuesday statement, after refusing to discuss the matter with reporters earlier in the day.
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
“This is the same organization that obtained warrants against Carter Page in the Russian investor that were so flawed the court rebuked the Department of Justice,” Sen. Lindsey Graham R-S.C., said at an event in South Carolina. “This is the same FBI that had agents in charge of investigations of Trump that ignored every exculpatory matter and assumed the worst.”
“At the end of the day, I know there’s a tremendous burden on the Department of Justice in my view to explain their actions and I hope they will,” Graham also said.
Turner, the top Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, sent a letter to Attorney General Garland demanding that he provide information on the raid to the committee.
An “escalation of this magnitude” is concerning, Turner wrote, because to raid a former president indicates Trump’s documents, “posed a serious, ongoing threat to our national security.” He demanded that the Justice Department turn over the evidence behind the search warrant for Trump’s home.
FBI agents this week raided the Mar-a-Lago estate of former President Trump in connection to a probe into documents Trump removed from the White House.
(AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
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Even Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Trump critic who is considered likely to run against Trump in a 2024 GOP presidential primary, demanded more information about the search of Trump’s property.
“These are unprecedented circumstances that require unprecedented transparency and accountability from our government institutions,” Hogan said. “The American people deserve to know all the facts as soon as possible, and I call on the Biden administration to release – at a minimum – the documents authorizing the FBI search.”
The DOJ, however, generally does not comment on ongoing investigations, and it has not released any information about the raid against Trump two full days after it happened. It is not clear if or when the department would weigh in.
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The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital Wednesday.
Fox News’ Kelly Phares, Brooke Singman, Stephanie Pagones, David Spunt and Lissa Kaplan contributed to this report.
