Reports: The FBI search of Trump's home was based on information from an informant

 According to US press reports, the FBI search of former President Donald Trump's home was based on information from an informant about the possibility of additional classified documents at home.

Government sources told news week that the raid on Trump's home in the Mar-a-Lago resort, Florida, was largely based on information from an FBI confidential informant who was able to identify classified documents that Trump was still hiding and the location of those documents.

• Sources familiar with the FBI's deliberations said the raid was deliberately timed to occur in Trump's absence

• stressing that "the raid was not politically motivated

• and the FBI is only intent on recovering top secret documents that were illegally removed from the White House."

"FBI decision makers in Washington and Miami believed that denying the former president the opportunity to take a picture or a platform from which to speak would diminish the significance of the event," a U.S. 

Justice Department official said, adding: 

1. Trying to keep the raid at a low level failed. Instead
2. it led to an angry reaction from GOP leaders and Trump supporters.
3. the consequences were counterproductive ".

"I know there's a lot of speculation that this is political persecution, but it's really the best and worst bureaucracy at work. They wanted to determine the fact that this was a routine law enforcement action, but the consequences were counterproductive. "