Yahoo Finance Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago Home Searched by FBI: 'The Mood Was Pure Shock'
Brandon Bell/Getty Donald Trump
Donald Trump's home at his Palm Beach, Fla., resort Mar-a-Lago has been searched by the FBI executing a federal search warrant.
The Federal Bureau of Investigations executed the warrant on Monday at the home of the former president, 76, according to CNN. The reason for the warrant remains unclear. The FBI did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.
"The mood was pure shock," a source who was present at Mar-a-Lago at the time tells PEOPLE.
Trump announced the news 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 the raid "prosecutorial misconduct."
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He previously appointed current FBI Director Christopher Wray to the position in 2017.
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The onetime Apprentice star added: "They even broke into my safe!"
Trump was not in Florida at the time of the FBI search, which appeared to be focused on his office and personal quarters, CNN reported.
In February, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) said in a statement that federal government officials had gone 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.
Joe Raedle/Getty. Inset: Zach Gibson - Pool/Getty Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida. Inset: Donald Trump.
The February statement from 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."
A letter from former President Barack Obama left for his successor was among the items that had been packed up in boxes and taken to Florida, according to The Washington Post. Other correspondence with world leaders — including what Trump previously called "love letters" from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — was also reportedly retrieved.
Reams of news clips printed out for the president, an item of clothing and a map that Trump infamously marked-up with a black Sharpie to show how Hurricane Dorian could hit Alabama in 2019 were also found in the boxes, The New York Times reports.
More items could be discovered, the National Archives said in February. "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."
Although Trump has teased his plans to run for a second term in 2024, Title 18 U.S. Code § 2071 states that anyone who "willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys" official government documents "shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States."
