Garrett Graff: “If this was about some run-of-the-mill classified documents accidentally swept up in the president’s hasty exit from the White House, surely the FBI wouldn’t care. Likewise, if these documents weren’t really that sensitive—as it turned out with Hillary Clinton’s 2016 email scandal—it’s hard to imagine the Justice Department going to these lengths.”

“Ironically (again), the Justice Department’s 2016 decision not to prosecute Hillary Clinton for her sloppy handling of classified materials as secretary of state raises the bar for any prosecution stemming from Trump’s handling of classified documents. DOJ prosecutors are heavily driven by precedent and similar past cases, which means that in order to pursue this Trump investigation, there would have to be more serious (and criminal) concerns than there were in the investigation of Clinton.”

“Thus, we’re left with the big question the FBI is ultimately trying to investigate right now: Who would have benefited from Trump taking home these particular documents—and why?”

Donald Trump signed a bill into law in January 2018 “that included a provision increasing the punishment for knowingly removing classified materials with the intent to retain them at an ‘unauthorized location,'” the HuffPost reports.

“Previously, someone found guilty of this crime could face up to one year in prison… Now, a person convicted of violating this law can face up to five years in prison ― making it a felony-level offense to mishandle classified documents under 18 U.S.C. 1924.”

“The raid on Mar-a-Lago was based largely on information from an FBI confidential human source, one who was able to identify what classified documents former President Trump was still hiding and even the location of those documents,” Newsweek reports.

“The FBI’s search of former President Donald Trump’s home on Monday to obtain information related to his handling of classified information is separate from the Justice Department’s investigation into the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021,” the New York Times reports.

“However, the information gathered by investigators at Mar-a-Lago could be used in other cases if it proves relevant.”

Dana Milbank: “I would like nothing more than to be wrong about this. But the reckless response by the GOP-Fox News axis to the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago makes it feel as though we’re falling into the abyss.”

“If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?”

— Donald Trump, quoted by the Washington Post in 2017.

“Donald Trump declined to answer questions from the New York state attorney general’s office on Wednesday, a stunning gamble in a high-stakes legal interview that is likely to determine the course of a civil investigation into his company’s business practices,” the New York Times reports.

In a statement released shortly after the questioning began on Wednesday, Trump said he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, explaining that he “declined to answer the questions under the rights and privileges afforded to every citizen under the United States Constitution.”

While Trump was probably legally right to plead the Fifth, that decision nonetheless has political consequences for him.