Speaker 1: All right.
An extraordinarily explosive story yesterday, the details of which we don't still fully
understand.
Donald Trump came out yesterday and claimed that his passports had been seized by the
FBI as they served the search warrant at his Mar a Lago home last week.
Now, if that is true, it indicates that the FBI presumably sees Donald Trump as a flight
risk and is worried about him leaving the country, and thus they have removed his means
of being able to leave the country.
That would be a really big deal.
It would be unprecedented for a former president to be unable to leave the country.
But is that actually what happened?
Was it a mix up?
Did Trump lie?
We're still trying to figure it out.
It started with Donald Trump posting untruth, social.
Quote.
Wow.
In the raid by the fbi of mar a lago, they stole my three passports.
One expired along with everything else.
This is an assault on a political opponent at a level never seen before in our country.
Third world.
Now, is it actually what happened?
We don't really know because there was a statement late last night that the FBI is not in possession
of the passports now is not in possession is a statement about the right then?
It's not a statement about we never had them.
It just means we don't have them at this exact point in time.
We later found out about an email that was sent from someone in law enforcement, presumably
to people on Trump's side, saying, We have learned that the filter agents seized three
passports belonging to President Trump, two expired and one being his active diplomatic
passport.
We are returning them and they will be ready for pick up at 2 p.m. today.
I'm traveling, but you can coordinate further with whoever.
Redacted.
Copied above.
Now if that was indeed JPM, it would make the statement from the FBI last night accurate
that they were not in possession of the passports, but they had them at cert at a certain point.
We later, I guess this morning got another report from NBC News.
Trump's passports returned after Mar a Lago searched per DOJ official in a message on
a social media platform.
Trump said the FBI agents who searched his home last week, quote, stole three passports,
including one that he said was expired.
The FBI acknowledged it had had the passports the same day Trump said on his social media
platform that they took them on August 8th.
A Justice Department official said Trump's passports have been returned, so we really
don't know exactly what happened here.
Why was Trump looking for his passports?
How did he know that they were in the boxes that he claimed were planted by the FBI?
I've never gone looking for my passport when I wasn't planning to leave the country as
a sort of curiosity.
It's all very strange, but it does not appear that the overall intention of the FBI was
to semi permanently prevent Donald Trump from leaving the country.
That would be a major, major thing.
Why did they take the passports and give them back?
Was it an accident where the passports in these particular boxes?
We don't know.
But it's all very, very strange