Florida: Judge Who Approved Donald Trump Mar-a-Lago Raid Has Barack Obama, Jeffrey Epstein Links

United States Judge Bruce Reinhart, who approved the FBI's raid of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, allegedly donated thousands to Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign and had links to the late disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

The donation reportedly came a month after Reinhart left the local U.S. Attorney's office to rep employees of Epstein who had received immunity in the long-running sex-trafficking investigation of the financier.

Judge Bruce Reinhart

Anonymous sources said that the judge approved the warrant that enabled federal agents to converge on the palatial South Florida estate on Monday. However, the former president called the incident an "unannounced raid on my home."

Reinhart was previously elevated to a magistrate judge in March 2018 after serving 10 years in private practice. In November of that year, there were reports that he had represented several of Epstein's employees, including the disgraced financier's pilots, as per the New York Post.

He also represented Epstein's scheduler, Sarah Kellen, and Nadia Marcinkova, who Epstein described as his "Yugoslavian sex slave." Kellen and Marcinkova were among the disgraced financier's lieutenants who were given immunity as part of a controversial 2007 deal with federal prosecutors that allowed Epstein to plead guilty to state charges rather than federal crimes.

As a result, Epstein ended up serving only 13 months in county jail and was later granted work release. Based on court documents, Reinhart resigned from the South Florida U.S. Attorney's Office effective on New Year's Day 2008 and went to work for Epstein's cohorts the day after.

According to Fox News, FBI agents executed a search warrant of Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday evening. It was allegedly part of the Department of Justice's investigation into whether or not the former president took government materials from his time in office.

White House Records

Sources said that the FBI agents were able to confiscate 15 boxes of classified materials during the raid. In a statement on Monday, Trump said that nothing like that has ever happened to a POTUS before. He argued that after working and cooperating with the relevant government agencies, the "unannounced raid" was not necessary or appropriate.

On the other hand, many Republican lawmakers, conservative commentators, and some Democrats expressed serious concern that the raid was politically motivated. House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy threatened to probe the DOJ over the raid if the GOP takes majority control after the November midterm elections.

The incident comes after in January, the National Archives and Records Administration discovered several classified materials at the residence. Reports also noted that some of the documents have been ripped up.

The Archives said that Trump was responsible for ripping up some of the presidential records that they received. However, the agency did not explain how officials knew that the Republican businessman was the one who ripped up the documents.

But authorities pointed to the previous reporting that White House records management staff had to tape together torn-up documents during Trump's presidency. In a statement, the Archives said, "These were turned over to the National Archives at the end of the Trump administration, along with a number of torn-up records that had not been reconstructed by the White House," CNN reported.