FBI Could Raid Trump Tower: Former Prosecutor

Trump Tower could be raided to see if Donald Trump is hoarding more classified documents, a former federal prosecutor has said.

Neama Rahmani was reacting to a court filing by Trump's lawyers on Tuesday, in which they said that Trump had kept presidential records in Trump Tower in New York and at his county estate in Bedminster, New Jersey.

"Prosecutors won't know if classified documents still remain at Trump's other homes unless they execute search warrants there," Rahmani told Newsweek.

Rahmani, now president of the West Coast Trial Lawyers law firm in California, said prosecutor Jack Smith "is unlikely to do so at this stage of the case and during the election, but that possibility exists, especially because Trump has failed to comply with lawfully issued subpoenas in the past."

Newsweek did not immediately receive a response to an email request for comment from Trump's attorney on Thursday.

The FBI raided Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in August, 2022 to retrieve classified documents that Trump had stored there. As a result, Trump is facing trial in Florida for allegedly retaining classified documents from his presidency, keeping them in various parts of Mar-a-Lago—including a bathroom—and obstructing federal officials' attempt to retrieve them.

Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges and has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

The latest filing by Trump's lawyers show that he held classified documents in Trump Tower and Bedminster, as well, even before his inauguration in 2017. The contents of the classified documents remain unclear.

The location of Trump's classified documents beyond the Florida resort had been redacted in previous court filings.

The locations were revealed in proposed jury instructions filed by Trump's lawyers to U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon on Tuesday.

The new information appears to confirm revelations by Trump's former valet, Brian Butler, that he helped load boxes of presidential records onto the Trump private plane in Florida while the former president and his family were flying to their Bedminster, N.J., mansion for the summer two years ago.

Butler told CNN last month that the plane was loaded on June 3, 2022, which was the same day Trump and his lawyer met with the Justice Department at Mar-a-Lago to discuss the missing classified documents.

Butler said he later realized that the white boxes of documents were at the center of the federal indictment against Trump.

Until he went public, Butler had only been known as "Trump Employee 5" in court documents filed to Cannon.

Cannon has been criticized by Smith for suggesting that the jury may be allowed to consider that Trump had held presidential records as his personal belongings that he was allowed to keep after leaving the White House.

Trump's claim that he designated presidential files as personal items before leaving the White House is a fundamental part of his defense in the classified documents case.