ND delegation reacts to raid on Mar-a-Lago

BISMARCK, N.D. (KFYR) - Federal agents searched Mar-a-Lago Monday as part of an investigation into whether the former president took classified records to his Florida residence, according to the Associated Press.

President Trump called the search an attack by “Radical Left Democrats.” But a former federal prosecutor says that’s not how the Justice Department operates.

“The people at the Department of Justice, the career people there, they are not risk-takers, they do not make mistakes, generally. They work hard to not be political,” said Tim Purdon, partner at Robins Kaplan in Bismarck.

North Dakota’s Congressional delegation criticized the search. Senator Kevin Cramer called it, “a total show.”

Representative Kelly Armstrong called it “an unprecedented escalation of DOJ’s political intimidation tactics.”

Senator John Hoeven said, “the DOJ must be transparent with the American people.” But the White House has indicated they didn’t know anything about the raid, and Purdon says the DOJ is conducting business how it’s supposed to.

“The Department of Justice policies that prohibit consultation with the White House on prosecution decisions, that prohibit discussion in the press of what you’re investigating and what you’ve found before an indictment, those protections and those policies are really important, and they’ve existed for a long time, and they’re here to ensure that everyone, even a former president, gets a fair trial and doesn’t get judged in the press,” said Purdon.

The Attorney General hasn’t indicated that he’s investigating former president Trump, but he has said publicly, “no one is above the law.”

Obtaining a search warrant doesn’t mean that criminal charges are near or expected. However, given the high-stakes nature of this search warrant, Tim Purdon says the first thing he thought of when hearing about it is that this type of search would only have been conducted near the end of an investigation.

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