Armed Trump supporters hold protest outside FBI Phoenix offices Saturday

PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) - Holding various flags and guns, supporters of former President Donald Trump gathered outside the FBI’s Phoenix offices on Saturday to protest what they call an “illegal” raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida earlier this week.

This week brought an “unprecedented” number of threats against FBI personnel and property, law enforcement sources tell CNN. In the days following the search, violent threats against the bureau began surfacing online, with posters writing, “Garland needs to be assassinated” -- referencing Attorney General Merrick Garland, who “personally approved” the decision to seek a warrant -- and “kill all feds.” Additionally, the biography and contact information of the federal magistrate judge who signed the search warrant was wiped from a Florida court’s website after he too became the target of violent threats.

In a separate incident Thursday, a man who was believed to be armed with an AR-15 rifle and a nail gun tried to breach the FBI’s Cincinnati field office. He was killed hours later after a standoff with authorities. Although the suspect’s motive has not yet been identified, he had been known to the FBI because he had an unspecified connection to the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol and because he had associates within a far-right extremist group, two law enforcement sources told CNN on Friday.

Court papers show that the FBI recovered documents labeled “top secret” from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. The papers released Friday indicate the seized records include some marked top secret and “sensitive compartmented information,” a special category meant to protect the nation’s most important secrets, and those that, if revealed publicly, could cause “exceptionally grave” harm to U.S. interests. The court records did not provide specific details about what information the documents might contain. Trump backed the warrant’s “immediate” release but contended the government could have had them any time by asking.

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