Trump news – live: FBI Mar-a-Lago raid leaves furious GOP leaders promising to investigate Justice Department

Mr Trump said his Florida residence was ‘currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents’

Trump supporters rally outside Mar-a-Lago after news of FBI raid

FBI agents have executed a search warrant at former president Donald Trump’s home at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. In a statement on Monday evening, Mr Trump said his Florida residence was “currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents”, who, among other things, “broke into” a safe belonging to the ex-president.

“These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,” Mr Trump wrote.

“Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before.”

The FBI has for months been investigating the contents of several boxes of White House records the ex-president took with him to Mar-a-Lago rather than turning over to the National Archives as required by law.

Republican leaders are furious at the news of the raid, and have joined Mr Trump in framing it as an act of political persecution. Kevin McCarthy has pledged to investigate the Justice Department should the GOP take back control of the House of Representatives after the midterm elections.

Key Points

• Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home searched by FBI, former president says
• Trump lamented his generals weren’t as loyal as Hitler's
• White House says it had no advance knowledge of FBI raid
• Fox News hosts and Republican leaders furious at news of search
• Documents pictured floating in toilets after Trump tried to flush them

[8 August 2022 16:45 · Andrew Naughtie]

Paul Manafort admits sharing data with Russians

Paul Manafort, the chairman of former president Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, has admitted sharing confidential campaign polling data with a suspected Russian intelligence officer at the same time Moscow was interfering in the 2016 election on Mr Trump’s behalf.

In an interview with Insider, Mr Manafort — who was later convicted of tax evasion but received a pardon from the ex-president — said he shared the data, which the Department of the Treasury described as “sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy”, with suspected Russian intelligence officer Konstantin Kilimnik in hopes of financial gain for himself, not to aid Russia’s efforts to help Mr Trump defeat Hillary Clinton.

“The data that I shared with him was a combination of public information and stuff for the spring that was — it was old,” said Mr Manafort, whose claim is at odds with what he told his former deputy, Rick Gates, in an email seized by federal investigators during the Justice Department’s probe into whether the Trump campaign had ties to Russia’s pro-Trump interference efforts.

Andrew Feinberg reports: