John Bolton Says Trump’s ‘Lies’ Show ‘Real Level Of Desperation’ After Mar-A-Lago Search

The Department of Justice unsealed the warrant used in the search of Mar-a-Lago after former President Donald Trump urged investigators to do so.

Now, Trump is backtracking on his statements.

The former president first claimed that he had the authority to declassify documents at-will, something legal experts strongly dispute.

Most recently, the Trump claimed the search was illegal and unwarranted.

“Oh great! It has just been learned that the FBI, in its now famous raid of Mar-a-Lago, took boxes of privileged ‘attorney-client’ material, and also ‘executive’ privileged material, which they knowingly should not have taken,” Trump stated on Truth Social. 

“By copy of this TRUTH, I respectfully request that these documents be immediately returned to the location from which they were taken,” he continued.

Trump claimed the boxes and files were restricted from the FBI’s scrutiny. Many of the files contained items labeled as “sensitive and compartmented information” or SCI, the most secret government documents.

SCI files are the most heavily guarded items and require extreme caution when opening them.

While Republicans argue that the president has complete authority to declassifying the documents, there is a formal process for declassifying the most secretive of files. Trump has not said that he went through any process regarding the documents.

John Bolton, Trump’s former National Security Advisor, spoke out against the former president’s reaction to the warrant in the New York Times, “When somebody begins to concoct lies like this, it shows a real level of desperation.”

Trump proclaimed after the unsealing there was a standing order that allowed for the at-will declassification of SCI files, but Bolton replied that “I was never briefed on any such order, procedure, policy when I came in. If he were to say something like that, you would have to memorialize that so that people would know it existed.”