The Federal Bureau of Investigations forgot to clear corners while scanning Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago residence, apparently leaving several stones unturned.
Special counsel Jack Smith’s team has been questioning several witnesses to the Mar-A-Lago raid about areas that the FBI apparently didn’t check during its August 2022 investigation, including a locked closet and a “hidden room” connected to his bedroom, sources familiar with the investigation told ABC News.
A senior FBI official told the outlet that agents targeted its search areas “based on information gathered throughout the course of the investigation,” though some security experts described the lapse as “a bit astonishing.”
“You’re searching a former president’s house. You [should] get it right the first time,” Jordan Strauss, a former national security official in the Justice Department, told ABC News.
Investigators later learned that Trump had the closet’s lock changed while one of his attorneys scoured for the classified documents in a storage room that he was told housed them.
Trump faces 40 felony charges in the case: 32 charges for violating the Espionage Act by retaining at least 102 documents with classified documents, six charges for obstruction, and two for making false statements regarding his possession of the documents.
Two of his associates are also charged in the case—longtime aide Walt Nauta, who’s charged with six felonies, and Mar-A-Lago employee Carlos De Oliveira who faces four felonies. Both of them, along with Trump, attempted to destroy security footage after federal officials requested it, according to a superceding indictment released July 2023.
The trial is scheduled for May 20, 2024 in Fort Pierce, Florida.