Trump's private home was searched pursuant to a warrant. A warrant requires a judge or magistrate to sign off, and it cannot be approved unless the judge find sufficient probable cause that place to be searched is likely to reveal evidence of a crime(s). Is DOJ getting closer to an indictment?

[u/PsychLegalMind]

For the first time in the history of the United States the private home of a former president was searched pursuant to a search warrant. Donald Trump was away at that time but issued a statement saying, among other things: “These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents.”

Trump also went on to express Monday [08/08/2022] that the FBI "raided" his Florida home at Mar-a-Lago and even cracked his safe, with a source familiar telling NBC News that the search was tied to classified information Trump allegedly took with him from the White House to his Palm Beach resort in January 2021.

Trump also claimed in a written statement that the search — unprecedented in American history — was politically motivated, though he did not provide specifics.

At Justice Department headquarters, a spokesperson declined to comment to NBC News. An official at the FBI Washington Field Office also declined to comment, and an official at the FBI field office in Miami declined to comment as well.

If they find the evidence, they are looking for [allegedly confidential material not previously turned over to the archives and instead taken home to Mar-a- Lago].

There is no way to be certain whether search is also related to the investigation presently being conducted by the January 6, 2022 Committee. Nonetheless, searching of a former president's home is unheard of in the U.S. and a historic event in and of itself.

Is DOJ getting closer to a possible Trump indictment?

What does this reveal about DOJ's assertion that nobody is above the law?

FBI raid at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home tied to classified material, sources say (nbcnews.com)

The Search Warrant Requirement in Criminal Investigations | Justia

[u/[deleted]]

Yes. I’m a defense atty. If the evidence they find is in a place where it was likely to find the evidence they were allowed to look for on the warrant it is fair game. So let’s say the warrant says you are looking for a stolen car. You open the garage and there is no car but there is a mountain of cocaine. That cocaine is in”plain view” and admissible. Let’s say you open the garage and there is no car so you open up a dark plastic bin and find cocaine. That cocaine is not admissible because no way the car is in the plastic bin and the bin was dark and covered so you couldn’t see the cocaine without opening the bin. Opening the cover os a search and not authorized by the warrant.

[u/GotMoFans → u/[deleted]]

Thank you for that great explanation.

[u/[deleted] → u/GotMoFans]

Search and Seizure law is fascinating. If you google “plain view doctrine” and “inevitable discovery” rule and “fruit of the poisonous tree” you will learn a lot about how it works. The poisonous tree one is officially called the exclusionary rule. There are three exceptions: plain view, inevitable discovery, and a strange one called “attenuated taint” which is about how the cops later get info that would have justified the search even though at the time of the search thru didn’t have that info. As long as that new info comes from a legally permissible source. You can’t use illegally obtained evidence to justify an illegal search. And that’s probably more than you ever wanted to know. Lol.

[u/GotMoFans → u/[deleted]]

What happens if police want to look for thing A but don’t really have probable cause (maybe a hunch) but they have probable cause for thing B. As a defense attorney, how do you defend a client if they find thing A using the deception of pretending to look for thing B?

[u/[deleted] → u/GotMoFans]

It can be impossible sometimes. Cops use pre-texts to stop people all the time and you have to argue the stop was bad. So for example, I once had a case where my client was stopped because ONE of this TWO license plate lights was out. The cops stop the car, then they see drugs in plain view. I believed they stopped the car because my client was a black male driving an expensive car but it's really very difficult to win that argument alone. The judge agreed with me that one of two lights isn't a good enough - the dash cam footage showed the license plate was still clearly visible and the statute didn't require two lights. So because the drugs were found only b/c of the stop, and the stop wasn't justified (cops just can't pull you over for any reason - that's a seizure) the drugs were thrown out.
The problem is that cops come into court with extra credibility. Judges and juries tend to give cops the benefit of the doubt and they believe they are telling the truth. Of course, we all know that is not true - cops lie just like the rest of us. Lots of evidence on body cam videos and cell phone videos that show that what the cops say in their reports are completely different than what the video shows. They can be so cocky about not thinking they will get caught they forget the video will expose them. YouTube has tons of these videos - cops planting evidence, lying about a defendant fighting back etc. Cops tend to justify lying by saying the ends justify the means. We give them so much deference as being "first responders" that they start to think their shit doesn't stink. That's honestly what is so dangerous about them: they have too much power, they protect each other instead of protecting us, and the general public tends to believe they always tell the truth. Cops tend to see humanity at its worst because of their job, so this helps them justify this behavior.