Trump faces New York deposition today – follow live

Donald Trump has made a new claim about the search of his Mar-a-Lago residence: that during the raid, FBI agents asked people present, including his lawyers, to leave the premises so they could carry out their search unobserved, possibly allowing them to plant evidence.

Keeping people away from an area being searched is in fact not unusual or unexpected, and probably reflects the FBI’s intention to avoid anyone affiliated with the former president from concealing what they were looking for.

Trump attorney Lindsey Halligan has confirmed that she and another lawyer were forbidden from entering the complex during the search, but she has also been able to describe which areas the agents searched: a bedroom, a storage area and an office.

Former White House adviser Steve Bannon has claimed that the “deep state” is planning to assasinate former president Donald Trump and that the FBI planted evidence against him during the raid on his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.

“I do not think it’s beyond this administrative state and their deep state apparatus to actually try to work on the assassination of President Trump. I think – I think everything’s on the table,” Mr Bannon said in an interview with right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Infowars.

“I think security ought to be at the highest it’s ever been. And honestly, I think he ought to and I think he should have flown down in Mar-a-Lago this morning, walked out there at noon today, and said, hey, I’m running for president, United States. Suck on that.”

Sravasti Dasgupta has the story.

As reported by the New York Times, one of Donald Trump’s lawyers, Christina Bobb, has described a previous subpoena from the FBI to the Trump Organization that saw the bureau obtain surveillance video from Mar-a-Lago.

It is not clear what period the tapes covered, why they were subpoenaed, or whether anything they contained helped create the impetus for Monday’s raid. However, sources have confirmed to the Times that despite the Trump team’s previous compliance with subpoenas, FBI investigators had come to question whether the information they were receiving was entirely accurate or honest.

The FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago aside, Donald Trump is under legal pressure on many fronts, and perhaps the highest-profile case against him personally is the New York Attorney General’s probe into allegations of fraud in his real estate dealings. Having spent months fighting a subpoena for his testimony, Mr Trump is today set to testify under oath to the attorney general’s office today.

The former president, whose children Ivanka and Donald Jr were recently interviewed for the investigation, has repeatedly characterised the probe as a political witch-hunt, and repeatedly insulted the attorney general Letitia James as she continues to pursue the case.

Here’s what he wrote about today’s interview on Truth Social last night:

Speaking on Fox News last night, Florida Senator Marco Rubio tried to hammer home what’s become one of the top GOP talking points about Monday’s FBI raid: that law enforcement investigation of political figures is the sort of thing that happens in failed states and banana republics, and that the Biden administration is a “regime” hellbent on “criminalising” its opponents.

He couched this analysis in a warning that when power reverts to the GOP, there will be reprisals for those who initiated the investigation of Mr Trump – essentially promising that his own party is prepared to engage in exactly the sort of politically motivated investigation he accuses the Democrats of pursuing.

One of Donald Trump’s attorneys, Lindsey Halligan, was present at Mar-a-Lago for much of Monday’s FBI raid – and yesterday, she spoke to CBS news to give them a detailed description of what happened.

Ms Halligan’s description only sheds so much light in the absence of the FBI’s warrant, which Mr Trump could release if he chose to.

Read CBS’s full report here.

Scott Perry, a Republican congressman from Arizona who reportedly sought a blanket pardon from the White House after the Capitol riot, has also been visited by the FBI this week. In his case, three agents arrived to seize his cell phone.

Mr Perry is predictably furious, and has issued the below statement decrying the FBI’s “banana republic tactics”.

It is unclear whether the seizure is connected to the Mar-a-Lago raid or to the Department of Justice’s probe into the events leading up to the events of 6 January 2021, which has lately seen multiple members of the Trump inner circle called to testify before a grand jury while others have been arrested and their homes searched.

No sooner had the news of the FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago broken than Trump supporters began to gather outside the president’s resort for a protest. Some of them were still there yesterday, and had this to say about what they considered an “unconstitutional” search:

Experts assessing the impact of the FBI search at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago house-turned-club premises have said there are fresh questions into the investigation surrounding the former president’s mishandling of law.

More than a day later, questions remain on multiple fronts about the search, much of which remains unclear.

Washington-based lawyer David Laufman, who headed the Justice Department’s counterintelligence and export control section during an investigation into Hillary Clinton, said: “It often comes down to whether there are aggravating factors in these cases.”

These factors include how much classified information was mishandled, the extent to which the person knew they were in possession of classified information, how sensitive the material was and whether its exposure placed US national security at risk.

People familiar with the issue have said that the search late on Monday related to an ongoing Justice Department investigation into the discovery of classified material in boxes of White House records the National Archives and Records Administration recovered from Mar-A-Lago earlier this year.

Donald Trump is under several congressional, civil and criminal investigations, which range from his business interests and allegations of tax fraud to his efforts to undermine the 2020 presidential election and fuel violence at the US Capitol.

The former president, his family business, real estate interests and political allies are under scrutiny from federal investigators, state attorneys and members of Congress.

Alex Woodward reviews a partial list of the key probes involving Mr Trump and where they currently stand following an unprecedented FBI raid at his Palm Beach, Florida home at Mar-a-Lago on 8 August.