Former President Trump on Tuesday said former first lady Melania Trump felt “very violated” after the FBI executed a search warrant at their Mar-a-Lago home last month.
“She felt very violated. I mean, this is a terrible thing. They go into her closet, they go through her dresses, and who knows what else, and it wasn’t left the way it — they found it,” Trump said during a phone interview with Newsmax.
“I didn’t walk into mine and say, ‘Oh, this is exactly so nice, the way they put it back,’” he added.
The former president called the search a “disgrace” and continued to assert that he had done no wrong by keeping classified documents at his Palm Beach, Fla., resort after the end of his presidential term.
FBI agents through the search recovered more than 100 classified documents and dozens of empty folders marked classified, taken from the White House.
“You take a look at the Presidential Records Act. That’s what you have to go by, I guess. I mean, that’s what I’m told,” Trump said.
The Presidential Records Act requires the preservation and return of documentary materials relating to the president’s political activities to the National Archives when the leader leaves office.
Trump’s defenses for keeping the classified material at his personal home have varied.
The former president has attempted to paint the Mar-a-Lago search as politically motivated, criticizing the Justice Department and the FBI for authorizing and conducting it.
Trump said Sunday that he’s returning to Mar-a-Lago to “see for myself” the impact of the raid.
“I’ll soon be heading to the scene of the unwarranted, unjust, and illegal Raid and Break-In of my home in Florida, Mar-a-Lago. I’ll be able to see for myself the results of the unnecessary ransacking of rooms and other areas of the house,” Trump said Sunday on his Truth Social platform.