- Rudy Giuliani told Newsmax about Trump's reaction to the FBI's search of Mar-a-Lago.
- Giuliani said Trump bragged about the size of the crowd of his supporters outside his home.
Rudy Giuliani said former President Donald Trump's first reaction to the FBI's search of his Florida property at Mar-a-Lago was to comment on the size of the crowd of his supporters that had gathered outside in the aftermath.
Giuliani, a former New York City mayor and onetime personal lawyer to the ex-president, told Newsmax during an interview that Trump said the raid was "going to help me."
"You see the number of people in front of Mar-a-Lago already? This is going to turn around. The American people have common sense. They've gone too far now," Giuliani recalled Trump telling him.
Trump's affinity for crowd sizes dates to the earliest days of his presidency, when his administration made false claims about the size of the crowd at his inauguration.
In the final days of his presidency, Trump's concern with the size of the crowd at his speech on January 6, 2021, led him to demand that security allow armed spectators through the metal detectors, Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide, testified. She then told the House panel investigating the Capitol riot that the then-president was "concerned" about the optics of the crowd size that day.
The FBI executed a search warrant on Trump's home on August 8 in search of classified documents it suspected Trump took to Mar-a-Lago after leaving office.
In the days after the search, Trump and the Department of Justice agreed to unseal documents relating to it, which show that the feds are investigating whether Trump broke three federal laws relating to the handling of classified information, including the Espionage Act.
The Department of Justice pushed for the documents to be unsealed amid political attacks from Trump and many of his allies, who have called into question the integrity of the department.
The former president has slammed the inquiry and denied reports that he was in possession of classified documents related to nuclear weapons, calling the claim a "hoax."
Giuliani told the New York Post last week that Trump could use the FBI to retaliate against President Joe Biden if the former president won back the White House in 2024.
"Breaking into the home of a former president is a political act — particularly since you're breaking precedent," he told the newspaper. "All of a sudden, you're the first president of the United States who introduced the banana-republic process of prosecuting your predecessor. We've avoided it for 240 years. Trump didn't do it to Hillary. Ford didn't do it."
He added: "If Trump gets elected, the first thing he'll do is raid every one of Biden's houses."
Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said on Sunday that the president was not briefed on the search beforehand and emphasized that the administration operated independently of the Department of Justice.