FBI searched Barron Trump's room during 'overly broad' raid: lawyer
The FBI searched Barron Trump's room during the raid of Mar-A-Lago two summers ago, lawyers for his father confirmed.
During a hearing Tuesday, attorney Emil Bove blasted the sweep as "overly broad" and illegal in its scope. But Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, seemed to disagree, Courthouse News Service reported.
FBI raided Barron's room
Prosecutor Jack Smith claims Trump illegally retained classified documents at his sprawling Palm Beach, Florida estate. The trial has been postponed indefinitely by Judge Cannon, who has been accused by liberals of steering the case in Trump's favor.
During Tuesday's hearing, Bove ripped the FBI's 2022 search as excessively broad. He emphasized the extent of Trump's massive property and the government's probable cause burden under the Fourth Amendment.
"This was an enormous piece of property, we're not talking about the search of a single-family home or of an apartment," he said.
"The government has to establish probable cause to search the areas that they've established in [the warrant]."
Judge Cannon unconvinced
FBI agents didn't need to search Melania Trump's room and the room where her son Barron "kept his Peloton bike," Bove said, noting agents took photographs in both rooms.
Prosecutors working for Jack Smith justified the sweeps, saying there was evidence that President Trump had moved boxes of documents around the property.
"There was some evidence that these boxes moved,” Prosecutor David Harbach said, adding “it would have been irresponsible for them not to search there.”
Judge Cannon seemed to agree with prosecutors that the search was legal. She said the question is whether the warrant was particular enough to be constitutional, and it "seems like it is."
“You’d agree that paperwork is the kind of thing that can be discovered anywhere?” she asked Bove.
Gag order request
President Trump has blasted the search as an unnecessary and even dangerous show of force against a political rival.
He cited the search of his son's "private quarters" in a May social media post blasting Biden.
"As I told Crooked Joe's DOJ, if they needed anything, 'all they had to do was ask.' They did not have to ILLEGALLY AND UNCONSTITUTIONALLY RAID my home, and rummage through my family's, including Barron's, private quarters. END THESE THIRD WORLD WITCH HUNTS, AND MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"
Smith has pushed for a gag order against Trump, citing his claims that the FBI was ready to shoot him. Smith has rejected the accusations as inflammatory and misleading.
Cannon has yet to rule on the gag order request, but she seemed skeptical during a Monday hearing.