According to court papers filed on Friday, the FBI was able to retrieve “top secret” documents from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
On Friday, the US Justice Department announced that it had “probable cause” to believe that Trump had broken the Espionage Act, a federal statute that forbids the possession or dissemination of material related to national defense, while also confirming the seizure.
After a federal court unsealed the warrant that permitted the historic search this week, the most shocking revelations emerged.
A property receipt, which federal agents create to detail what was taken during a search, was unsealed by the court and reveals that FBI agents searched the estate on Monday and removed 11 sets of classified records.
Some of the data that were taken were labeled as top secret and classified, the two classification levels that are reserved for the nation’s most closely held national security information.
A list of goods removed from the home revealed that FBI agents took more than 30 items, including more than 20 boxes, photo binders, a handwritten message, and the executive clemency award for Trump ally and longtime adviser Roger Stone. The list also contained details regarding the “President of France”.
Trump asserted in a statement on Friday that the records agents collected from his Florida club were “all declassified” and that he would have provided the records to the Justice Department upon request.
Although current presidents have the capacity to declassify information, this power expires when they leave office, and it was unclear whether the disputed documents had ever been declassified.
Despite several demands from organizations, such as the National Archives, for the president’s records to be turned over in compliance with federal law, Trump continued to keep the documents.
The search warrant and property receipt were released on Friday at the request of the Justice Department by US Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, the same jurist who approved the search warrant.
It happened after Trump supported the “immediate” release of the warrant and Attorney General Merrick Garland stated there was “strong public interest in this case.” On Friday afternoon, the Justice Department informed the judge that Trump’s attorneys had not raised any objections to the idea of making it public.
Not only will I not oppose the release of records, but I am going a step further by ENCOURAGING the quick release of those documents, Trump stated in statements posted on his Truth Social platform.
Trump and his attorneys have so far declined to make the papers public despite receiving at least some of the documents the government was attempting to unseal.
The Justice Department’s request is notable since such records typically remain confidential while an investigation is ongoing. However, the department seemed to realize that its silence following the search had left a space for Trump and his supporters to launch vicious rhetorical attacks and that the public was entitled to hear the FBI’s explanation for what led to Monday’s operation at the former president’s residence.
According to a request submitted on Thursday in federal court in Florida, “the public’s strong and powerful interest in understanding what occurred under these circumstances weighs heavily in favor of unsealing.”
The documents may reveal damaging information about Trump and the FBI’s investigation into his handling of confidential government records as he gears up for a second presidential bid.
Trump and the FBI have not provided any information regarding the documents they may have found or the precise nature of their search. The search warrant for Mar-a-Lago was executed on Monday as part of a Justice Department investigation into the recovery of secret White House documents from Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida, residence earlier this year.
