The Federal Bureau of Investigation recently conducted a raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. The raid occurred on Aug. 8, 2022 with the FBI’s goal being to extract classified documents that Trump had taken from the White House during his presidency. This action is blatantly against the law, and this controversial situation is still being attended to by the Department of Justice and the Court of Appeals. However, the question of who is in the wrong still stands as the event took place so quickly that it is difficult to point fingers at anyone when there were mistakes on both sides.

The day the search took place, Trump was not in his home. Conservatives do not fail to note this factor in their hopes to defend the former president as they considered this sudden search to practically be an act of war. Despite Trump not being present, the FBI did receive approval from Judge Bruce Reinheart. Trump argued that the Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens from unnecessary searches, was disregarded at the time of the raid. However, this is not the case since he took classified documents from the White House in the first place, meaning that the search was indeed gravely necessary.

“I just do not see why he would take the documents in the first place. What good are they if he had no power anyway,” senior Sophie Gonzalez said.

One presentable argument is that Trump is not the only former president to have taken something from the White House when they were not supposed to. One notable example is former President Clinton, who took $28,000 worth of furniture from the White House after his second term in office. The furniture was returned, but the act was still committed. This does not make Trump’s actions right in any way; however, it is clear that somewhat of a double standard is at play since he is being treated more negatively than Clinton was. In fairness, this is likely because of Trump’s foul mouth and inability to take accountability. Despite the similarity of these situations, Trump did break the Espionage Act since some of the documents he took were related to the military. Only people in high-ranking military positions should have those documents, and the former president of the U.S. is not one of them since he is no longer in power.

Thankfully for Trump, he avoided further legal ire by allegedly declassifying a total of 100 highly sensitive documents. Nevertheless, the Court of Appeals found no proof that this actually happened. Furthermore, Trump’s lawyer never provided evidence that the documents were declassified.

“I can see both sides of the story, I just think the two [parties] are corrupted at the moment,” sophomore Salome Correa said.

The situation has not cleared up; on the contrary, it is still relevant despite the fact that it took place last month. Trump is within the possibility of being pressed with charges, and his legal fight is ongoing. The event is admittedly confusing and has not been completely dealt with. Both sides made questionable decisions, but the only thing that we can do as citizens is have faith in the law and hope justice prevails no matter what.