- Trump released a new statement amid reports that he took nuclear documents from the White House.
- He falsely claimed Obama kept classified documents. "How many of them pertained to nuclear? Word is, lots!"
- Whataboutism aside, Trump's statement notably did not deny reporting that he took top-secret documents to Mar-a-Lago.
In a new statement released Friday, former President Donald Trump didn't deny a Washington Post report that the FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago home for classified documents that contained nuclear information.
Instead, he again attacked former President Barack Obama, falsely accusing him of illegally keeping classified documents.
"President Barack Hussein Obama kept 33 million pages of documents, much of them classified," Trump said in the statement. "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, one former DOJ official replied: "Sounds like it."
"The correct answer is: 'I didn't take any classified info,'" the former official, who requested anonymity to candidly discuss the topic, added.
The former official added, "'Word is...' Love that. Word from who? His barber?"
Earlier Friday, Trump released another statement that appeared to dispute the Washington 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 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 will agree with or object to the DOJ's motion to unseal.
Trump, meanwhile, has been drawing false comparisons between the FBI uncovering 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 previously reported, the Obama records were processed through the National Archives, which owns them.
