“I personally approved the decision to request a search warrant in this matter,” he told reporters. “The department does not make such a decision lightly.”
FBI raids Trump residence looking for White House documents
The FBI search this week of Trump’s residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, set off a political firestorm in an already deeply divided country and comes as Trump weighs a new White House bid.
Republican personalities offered their support to the former president, who was not at the scene when the raid took place.
Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence, a possible rival in 2024, expressed his “deep concern” and estimated that the search seemed motivated by “partisanship”.
Garland criticized the “baseless attacks on the professionalism of FBI and Justice Department agents and prosecutors.”
Since leaving office, Trump has retained great influence over the GOP, continuing to claim, without evidence, that he won the 2020 presidential election.
Trump also condemned the raid, saying it is politically motivated and constitutes a “weaponization” of the Justice Department.
“Nothing like this has ever happened to a president of the United States before,” he said.
Just two days after the FBI operation, Trump, 76, was questioned for four hours Wednesday at the Manhattan office of Letitia James, the New York state attorney general, who investigates the business practices of the Trump Organization. .