Cuomo Demands FBI 'Explain' Search Of Trump's Mar-A-Lago Residence

NEW YORK CITY — The unprecedented FBI search of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence turned up an unlikely ally: disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Cuomo on Tuesday took to Twitter to effectively demand that federal justice officials justify the raid.

"DOJ must immediately explain the reason for its raid & it must be more than a search for inconsequential archives or it will be viewed as a political tactic and undermine any future credible investigation & legitimacy of January 6 investigations," Cuomo tweeted.

The spectacle of Cuomo, a Democratic former governor and attorney general, echoing what many Republican allies of Trump said about the raid took many by surprise.

"I did not have Andrew Cuomo coming to Trump’s defense on my bingo card," tweeted @CarolinaOpinion.

The exact reasons for the surprise FBI raid Monday are unclear, but the New York Times reported that it involved a search for classified documents that authorities believe Trump may have improperly taken with him from the White House.

Trump blasted the FBI raid in a statement.

"They even broke into my safe!" he said. "What is the difference between this and Watergate, where operatives broke into the Democrat National Committee? Here, in reverse, Democrats broke into the home of the 45th President of the United States."

While Trump's claims that the search was political were echoed by Republicans, and given some measure of support by Cuomo, others pointed out the warrant would have itemized what FBI agents were searching for.

Trump would have a copy of the warrant, noted Neal Katyal, a former U.S. solicitor general.

"If Trump/RNC think this search signed off on by a fed judge is abusive & they have nothing to hide, release the warrant to the public," Katyal tweeted.

"Also it's telling to me that while Trump knows who signed the warrant (because a copy of it was left at Mar a Lago) we haven't heard him attacking the judge. If he's so convinced this is abuse, he should release the warrant and let us all know who it is and what the warrant says."

Cuomo's qualified defense of Trump was joined by another erstwhile New Yorker: Andrew Yang.

Yang, who unsuccessfully ran for mayor, tweeted he's no Trump fan.

"But a fundamental part of his appeal has been that it’s him against a corrupt government establishment," he tweeted. "This raid strengthens that case for millions of Americans who will see this as unjust persecution."

Both Cuomo's and Yang's Twitter takes received decidedly mixed-to-negatives reactions.

"I thought Andrew Yang embarrassed himself this morning but Andrew Cuomo clearly didn’t want to be the only Andrew with bad take," tweeted Molly Jong-Fast.

"Andrew Cuomo yearns for the good old days when corrupt politicians on both sides could sleep peacefully knowing they’d never be held to account for their actions," @MikePerlberg tweeted.

"Andrew Cuomo is wrong," tweeted @keithboykin. "DOJ doesn't have to explain anything. They never announced they searched Mar-a-Lago. Trump did. He's the one who politicized it by (a) stealing documents, (b) refusing to return the documents, and (c) pretending to be the victim after he broke the law."

"Andrew Cuomo has given a stronger statement on the raid than many GOP electeds," tweeted Gavin Wax, a prominent New York Republican. "Obviously, his reasoning is completely different and self-interested in nature but this just shows how weak the GOP is on literally everything."