House Republican questions if warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago was justified

Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) on Sunday questioned whether the search warrant executed by the FBI at former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence was justified and necessary, saying that Attorney General Merrick Garland “has a lot of questions to answer” about the search. 

“Donald Trump is not above the law. And Attorney General Garland is not above the law either. And Congress has the powers of oversight. He needs to comply,” Turner said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“We have seen material like this before. We have seen materials that have been submitted to courts for warrants. This is not unprecedented. His actions are unprecedented in history, and he has a lot of questions to answer,” Turner added.

The Ohio congressman questioned whether the classified documents seized by the FBI in the search do in fact contain sensitive information that “rises to the level of an immediate national security threat” and whether that justifies the Mar-a-Lago search. 

Turner also expressed concern that Garland, who he said had his career “derailed on the way to the Supreme Court by Donald Trump himself,” exhibited an “abuse of discretion” in moving forward with the search warrant.

“They had other options. I’m certain that you have to understand that going into his house, especially the former president, President Biden’s political rival, into his house for nine hours, is the most intrusive, invasive — and Attorney Garland’s got to justify that,” he said.

Turner underscored what he called a bipartisan call from Congress for the Justice Department to “show us the goods” and share more information about what it intended to find in the search as well as what was actually found.

Garland said after the Mar-a-Lago search that he had “personally approved the decision” to seek the warrant.

“The department does not take such decision lightly. Where possible, it is standard practice to seek less intrusive means as an alternative to a search and to narrowly scope any search that is undertaken,” Garland said in a rare press conference.

The Justice Department later asked a judge to unseal the search warrant.

Court records revealed that the FBI had seized 11 sets of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago.