PALM BEACH, Fla. — Stuart Kaplan is a former FBI agent and is now a defense lawyer based in Palm Beach County.
Amid the fallout over the FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago, allegedly in search of classified documents the former president kept after leaving office, he has a message for the FBI director.
"I would have said to the director, Chris Wray, this is equating to pulling the pin out of a hand grenade and throwing it into an occupied room, knowing the potential for collateral damage it was going to cause," Kaplan told WPTV.
Kaplan argued the FBI should show the former president the reasons for the search.
"Provide him with an affidavit in support of the search warrant so it is transparent, and then we can come to our own conclusions as to whether or not it was in fact neutral, unfettered, unbiased," Kaplan said.
Kaplan also talked at length about sinking confidence in the FBI in some quarters amid the rancorous political debates rocking the country.
"I have never ever heard or read, before today, editorials or opinions by the general public to defund the FBI, not only the premier law enforcement agency in the United States, but in the world," he concluded. "We now have people suggesting we need to do away with the FBI, and that is a very, very disturbing situation we are confronted with."