Special counsel Jack Smith’s team has questioned several witnesses about a closet and a so-called “hidden room” inside former President Donald Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago that the FBI didn’t check while searching the estate in August 2022. […] when agents reached the locked closet near the front of Trump’s residence, they couldn’t locate a key for it and were told the space behind the door – an old stairwell turned into a closet with shelves – went nowhere, so they decided not to break it open, sources said […] some investigators involved in the case came to later believe that the closet, which was locked on the day of the search, should have been opened and checked.

As investigators would later learn, Trump allegedly had the closet’s lock changed while his attorney was in Mar-a-Lago’s basement, searching for classified documents in a storage room that he was told would have all such documents. Special counsel Jack Smith’s team has questioned several witnesses about a closet and a so-called “hidden room” inside former President Donald Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago that the FBI didn’t check while searching the estate in August 2022 […] the FBI didn’t even know the so-called “hidden room” existed until after they left Mar-a-Lago […] Though agents searched Trump’s bedroom, a small door in one of the walls was concealed behind a large dresser and a big TV, sources said. The space behind the wall was the “hidden room,” which maintenance workers sporadically entered to access cables running through it.

Hidden rooms were in fashion when Mar a Lago was built.