Fourteen of the 15 boxes recovered from former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate this year contained classified documents — many of them top secret — mixed in with miscellaneous newspapers, magazines and personal correspondence.
The affidavit by the FBI in support of obtaining a search warrant for former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate is photographed Friday, Aug. 26, 2022. U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart ordered the Justice Department to make public a redacted version of the affidavit it relied on when federal agents searched Trump's estate to look for classified documents.
Documents previously made public show that federal agents are investigating potential violations of multiple federal laws, including one that governs gathering, transmitting or losing defense information under the Espionage Act. The other statutes address the concealment, mutilation or removal of records and the destruction, alteration or falsification of records in federal investigations.HTML tag. Try viewing this in a modern browser like Chrome, Safari, Firefox or Internet Explorer 9 or later.
The affidavit argues a search of Mar-a-Lago was necessary due to the highly sensitive material found in those 15 boxes. Of 184 documents marked classified, 25 were at the top secret level, the affidavit says. Some had special markings suggesting they included information from highly sensitive human sources or the collection of electronic “signals” authorized by a special intelligence court.
The affidavit shows how agents were authorized to search a large swath of Mar-a-Lago, including Trump’s official post-presidential “45 Office,” storage rooms and all other areas in which boxes or documents could be stored. They did not propose searching areas of the property used or rented by Mar-a-Lago members, such as private guest suites.The FBI submitted the affidavit, or sworn statement, to a judge so it could obtain the warrant to search Trump’s property.
The second half of the affidavit is almost entirely redacted, making it impossible to discern the scope of the investigation or where it might be headed. It does not reveal which individuals might be under investigation and it does not resolve core questions, such as why top secret documents were taken to Mar-a-Lago after the president’s term even though the government regards them as presidential records and even though classified information requires special storage.
The back-and-forth culminated in the Aug. 8 search in which agents retrieved the 11 sets of classified records.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Trump mixed top-secret documents with magazines and other items, FBI says in search affidavitFourteen of 15 boxes recovered from Donald Trump’s Florida estate earlier this year contained documents with classification markings, according to an FBI affidavit released Friday explaining the justification for the search of the property this month.
Read more »
FBI: Trump mixed top secret docs with magazines, other itemsThe FBI submitted the affidavit, or sworn statement, to a judge so it could obtain a warrant to search Trump’s property.
Read more »
FBI: Trump Mixed Top Secret Docs With Magazines, Other ItemsThe 32-page affidavit — heavily redacted to protect the safety of witnesses and law enforcement officials and “the integrity of the ongoing investigation” — offers the most detailed description to date of the government records being stored at Mar-a-Lago long after Trump left the White House.
Read more »
Trump Mar-a-Lago affidavit: 25 ‘top secret’ documents found by FBIIn a review of 15 boxes taken previously from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, FBI agents found: • 184 documents with classification markings. • 25 marked “top secret.” • 67 marked “confidential.” • 92 marked “secret.”
Read more »
Redacted affidavit in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago search released by Justice DepartmentFourteen of the 15 boxes recovered from Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate contained documents with classification markings, including at the top secret level, according to the affidavit.
Read more »
Redacted affidavit in Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate search to be releasedA heavily-redacted document is set to be released explaining the justification for an FBI search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, where agents removed top secret government records.
Read more »