Jack Smith finds 'astonishing' error in FBI’s Trump Mar-a-Lago estate search: report

01 February 2024

Department of Justice (DOJ) Special Counsel Jack Smith's team is investigating a "so-called 'hidden room'" in Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) somehow missed during its August 2022 search, ABC News reports.

Per the report, former DOJ security official Jordan Strauss called the alleged lapse "a bit astonishing," as "[The FBI] is almost notorious for their relentlessness and follow-through."

He told the news outlet, "You're searching a former president's house. You get it right the first time.”

ABC reports, "Sources told ABC News that FBI agents didn't do more in part because they felt like they had been at Mar-a-Lago long enough. But the senior FBI official disputed that, saying, 'Discussions took place that day about additional areas of the property and it was determined that actions already taken met the parameters of the search warrant.'"

The news outlet also notes, "As described to ABC News, the line of questioning in several interviews ahead of Trump's indictment last year on classified document charges suggests that -- long after the FBI seized dozens of boxes and more than 100 documents marked classified from Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate -- Smith's team was trying to determine if there might still be more classified documents there."

A Trump campaign spokesperson, according to ABC, "criticized President Joe Biden and the news media, saying the investigations into Trump are 'just desperate attempts at election interference ... to stop the presumptive Republican nominee for President.'"

ABC News' full report is here.

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