Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticized both the Department of Justice and former President Donald Trump for the FBI raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and the handling of classified documents, respectively.
Pompeo made his remarks at a private event hosted by the Israel Heritage Foundation.
In a response to a question about “what President Trump is up to” more than a year after leaving office, Pompeo jokingly replied, “He’s down in Mar-a-Lago, watching the FBI raid his home.”
He added that “What happened there is outrageous,” referring to the FBI’s raid but also explained Trump shouldn’t have taken the classified documents from the White House.
“No one gets to keep classified information outside of a place classified information should be. That is certainly true,” he noted in a more serious tone.
Yet he qualified his statements, explaining, “But for the Department of Justice to behave the way they did by raiding the home of a former president is absolutely outrageous.”
He also expressed his belief that the move was “politicizing” the DOJ.
“And it is politicizing a Department of Justice that I fear is headed in a way that is not consistent with the understandings that we all have of the rule of law here in the United States,” he concluded his response.
Pompeo’s Sunday remarks coincide with Trump’s first visit to his Mar-a-Lago property since the August 8 FBI raid, which he characterized as a “Break-in of my home,” describing it as a “deep and ugly search” that was carried out by “vicious monsters, controlled by radical-left scoundrels.”
