FBI's Reported Failures in Mar-a-Lago Search 'Troubling'—Attorney

Claims that the Federal Bureau of Investigations failed to search two key areas when raiding Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence as part of the classified documents probe are "troubling," a former federal prosecutor has said.

FBI agents raided the former president's private members club and recovered several classified documents in August 2022. The Republican was charged in June 2023 with retaining national defense information—including U.S. nuclear secrets and plans for military retaliation in the event of an attack—and obstructing the government's efforts to retrieve them.

Prosecutors have said Trump took documents that he was no longer authorized to have after leaving the White House in January 2021 and resisted repeated requests by federal officials to return them. Trump has denied all wrongdoing and maintained innocence in the indictment.

ABC News reported on Friday that Special Counsel Jack Smith's team has questioned several witnesses about a locked closet and a hidden room inside Mar-a-Lago that the FBI didn't check while searching the estate in August 2022. The publication cited anonymous sources in their report. Newsweek has not been able to confirm the reporting and has contacted the FBI by email to comment on this story.

Writing in her blog, Civil Discourse, former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance said the FBI agents made mistakes.

"On the face of the reporting, it's difficult to figure out why FBI agents held off," she wrote. "The reporting seems to suggest agents encountered the closet, couldn't find the key, and decided to let it go. It's not clear they were even aware of the hidden area, although the Secret Service would have had a complete floor map for the area Trump resided in, and agents are trained to be alert for concealed spaces. But sometimes, people make mistakes. That seems to have happened here, and it's troubling in a case of this magnitude."

She added that agents can use new information they've acquired to ask a judge to expand the areas of the search allowed in a warrant.

"That could have been done here if there was any concern about taking a look in the locked closet," she said.

Former Justice Department security official Jordan Strauss called the alleged lapse "a bit astonishing," according to the ABC News report.

"You're searching a former president's house," Strauss was quoted as telling the publication. "You get it right the first time."

The trial for Trump's classified documents case is scheduled for May 20, but the Republican has sought to delay all his cases until after the 2024 presidential election. If Trump, the GOP front-runner, wins the election, he can seek to drop the charges in his cases.

Meanwhile, Trump is facing three other criminal prosecutions, all of which he has pleaded not-guilty to.