- In drafting its search warrant, the DOJ knew it had only one chance to enter Mar-a-Lago, said one ex-fed.
- The warrant would cast the widest net possible, allowing seizures relating to multiple federal statutes, he said.
- The longer the search warrant — and its list of statutes — the worse off for Donald Trump.
The feds knew they had only one chance to search Mar-a-Lago — so they carried a big net, predicts a longtime Department of Justice prosecutor.
The search warrant that got them inside the waterfront Palm Beach estate of former President Donald Trump may have only been one-page long, notes Gene Rossi, for three decades a federal prosecutor out of northern Virginia. But the warrant would have authorized FBI agents to seize evidence related to multiple federal statutes, Rossi predicts — statutes well beyond 18 USC 2071, which is about the alleged mishandling of documents.
"I would be shocked," Rossi told Insider on Tuesday, if the search warrant did not also list the federal statutes for insurrection, for sedition and for obstruction — three charges Trump could potentially face for alleged involvment in the January 6, 2021 seige on the Capitol.
"And others," added Rossi, now in private practice at Carlton Fields.
"You got the electors thing," he said, referring to the "fake electors" scheme, and wire fraud, which has been cited as a possible charge connected to fundraising off of baseless claims of election fraud.
Ironically, Republicans are now fundraising on the Mar-a-Lago raid.
"They only get one chance at doing a search warrant of Donald Trump's home," said Rossi.
"The Department of Justice is not going to blow their wad, in my view, on just looking at 2071, the records statute," he said.
"If you're getting into his house, take advantage of that. That would be my thinking.
"And the other thing is, once you are lawfully inside that house, the plain view doctrine kicks in. So they may be looking for evidence of various crimes that I just listed. But if they find evidence of other crimes, they can take that evidence," he said.
"That's why, I gotta tell you, Trump mentioned in his statement they went into his safe," Rossi added.
"I would not be surprised — we could talk about tax issues, there could be bank account statements, we don't know."
Eric Trump, Trump's son, had said in a Fox News interview after the raid that agents appeared focused on "boxes" his father took with him when he left the White House.