Trump doesn't deny taking classified nuclear documents from the White House while baselessly accusing Obama of the same thing
- Trump released a statement amid reports suggesting he took nuclear documents from the White House.
- He baselessly accused Obama of keeping classified documents, "lots" of which "pertained to nuclear."
In a statement released Friday, former President Donald Trump didn't deny a Washington Post report that said the FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago home for classified documents with information about nuclear weapons.
Instead, he again attacked former President Barack Obama, baselessly accusing him of illegally keeping classified documents.
"President Barack Hussein Obama kept 33 million pages of documents, much of them classified," Trump said. "How many of them pertained to nuclear? Word is, lots!"
Asked whether Trump's statement appeared to confirm that nuclear documents were uncovered in the Mar-a-Lago raid, a former Justice Department official replied, "Sounds like it."
"The correct answer is: 'I didn't take any classified info,'" said the former official, who requested anonymity to candidly discuss the topic.
The person added: "'Word is...' Love that. Word from who? His barber?"
Earlier Friday, Trump released another statement that appeared to dispute the Post report.
"Nuclear weapons issue is a Hoax, just like Russia, Russia, Russia was a Hoax, two Impeachments were a Hoax, the Mueller investigation was a Hoax, and much more. Same sleazy people involved," the statement said.
Trump's public comments came one day after Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that the Justice Department had filed a motion to unseal the search warrant underpinning the FBI's Mar-a-Lago raid.
A magistrate judge subsequently ordered the department to confer with Trump's lawyers and advise the court by 3 p.m. ET on Friday whether the former president would agree with or object to the DOJ's motion to unseal.
Trump, meanwhile, has been drawing misleading comparisons between the FBI's search for classified records at his Florida home and Obama's legal transfer of records from the White House to Chicago for his presidential library. As Insider reported, the Obama records were processed through the National Archives, which owns them.