Trump in NYC during FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago

NEW YORK - Former President Donald Trump was in New York City when the FBI carried out a raid on his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Monday. 

Fox News Digital captured photos of the former president leaving Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan on Monday evening. Trump was heading to his property in Bedminster, New Jersey, Fox News reported.

Earlier in a post on his social media platform, Trump said Mar-a-Lago was "under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents. Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before."

An FBI source confirmed to Fox News that agents from the bureau's Evidence Response Team based out of Washington, D.C., conducted the raid in Florida. 

Ankush Khardori, a former federal prosecutor, told FOX 5 NY that the search indicates something "significant" but that Trump is "prone to exaggeration."

"No matter the extent of the intrusion or what they were looking for and why, that, in and of itself, is a momentous development," Khardori said. 

The raid was connected to a U.S. Justice Department investigation into the presence of classified records inside 15 boxes that the National Archives and Records Administration retrieved from Mar-a-Lago earlier this year. The Archives then referred the matter to the DOJ.

However, Khardori said Trump might not be the target of the investigation.

"The Justice Department could be investigating criminal conduct that Trump didn't himself necessarily commit—maybe it was someone that prepared the boxes for him or who was involved in preparing the boxes for him," Khardori said. "It's not even obvious simply from the fact his property was searched that they expect to find criminal evidence concerning him."

With Fox 5 NY's Linda Schmidt and The Associated Press.