Political | Process

Mr. Trump was in New York at the time, as the resort is mostly dormant during the summer months. The Federal Bureau of Investigation met U.S. Secret Service employees on Monday morning outside Mar-a-Lago to alert them they were executing the warrant. After the search, the federal agents hauled away roughly 10 more boxes, a person with knowledge of the operation said.

The extraordinary law-enforcement action came two months after Justice Department lawyers, including an official who supervises investigations involving classified information, visited the Palm Beach, Fla., residence seeking more information about potentially sensitive material that had been taken there from the White House.

Monday’s hours long search marked an escalation of a federal investigation that began earlier this year into how classified documents ended up in boxes of White House records discovered at Mar-a-Lago.

The Justice Department has been looking into the former president’s handling of official records as well as his actions around the Jan. 6, 2021, incident at the U.S. Capitol. Monday’s search is separate from the Jan. 6 investigation, the people familiar with the probe said. Mr. Trump has denied wrongdoing and casts the investigations as part of a long-running campaign by Democrats.

Mr. Trump, who for months had been in discussions with federal officials about his presidential records, called the raid “not necessary or appropriate.” In a statement Monday night, the former president said his home was “under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents.”

Federal U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart approved a warrant for FBI agents to search the property, according to a person familiar with the matter. No one answered the phone in the judge’s chambers Tuesday. Judge Reinhart, like other magistrate judges who usually review such requests, wasn’t presidentially appointed to that position but was named to the post by judges on the district court.

It has also comes to light that Judge Reinhart had previous ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

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