Washington: The US Justice Department began investigating Donald Trump because it believed he had illegally taken documents from the White House, including material that could compromise government intelligence and some of the nation’s most highly guarded secrets.
Almost three weeks after the FBI descended on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, the department on Friday (US time) released a highly anticipated redacted version of the sworn statement that was submitted to a judge to justify its search of Trump’s property in Florida.
Former US president Donald TrumpCredit:Bloomberg
The affidavit revealed that Trump had in his possession at least 184 documents bearing classification markings, including 25 marked as “top secret”, 92 marked as “secret” and 67 marked as “confidential.”
It also outlined the heightened alarm among federal authorities, who weren’t just concerned that the documents were at Trump’s home illegally, but also feared that disclosure could compromise national security as well as “clandestine human sources” employed by the intelligence community to collect information around the world.
The affidavit spanned 38 pages, about half of which was blacked out in order for the department to protect key witnesses and ensure its ongoing investigation was not compromised.
But while the department did not publicly disclose the exact nature of the material or why Trump chose to keep it, the affidavit nonetheless paints the clearest picture yet of the extraordinary August 8 raid, which has created a fresh legal headache for Trump as he lays the foundation for another potential presidential run in 2024.
The documents confirm that the government was conducting a “criminal investigation concerning the improper removal and storage of classified information in unauthorised spaces, as well as the unlawful concealment or removal of government records”.
This began after the US National Archives and Records Administration – which is charged with the preservation of government and historical records – sent a referral to the department of justice on February 9 last year.
It didn’t take long for authorities to become concerned, not just because sensitive material had been taken by Trump after leaving the White House, but also because of the haphazard way the former president was apparently keeping the documents at his highly visited Palm Beach property.
The notice filed by the US Justice Department which enabled the FBI to raid Mr Trump’s resort at Mar-a-Lago.Credit:AP
Indeed, as the affidavit points out, a preliminary review had uncovered 15 boxes that contained “a lot of classified records” dispersed with “newspapers, printed news articles, photos, miscellaneous print-outs, notes, presidential correspondence, personal and post presidential records”.
Some were believed to have contained spy information, others involved details of human sources and information that shouldn’t be shared with foreign allies, while others contained what appeared to be Trump’s handwritten notes.
There was even “probable cause to believe that additional documents that contain classified NDI (national defence information) or that are presidential records subject to record retention requirements currently remain at the premises,” said one section of the affidavit.
“There is also probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found at the premises.”
“Of most significant concern was that highly classified records were unfolded, intermixed with other records, and otherwise unproperly [sic] identified.”
The affidavit was unsealed shortly after midday on Friday under orders by Judge Bruce Reinhart, the man who signed off on the warrant and received death threats by Trump’s supporters as a result of that decision.
In the aftermath of the FBI search, many of Trump’s supporters took to social media calling for “civil war” against the FBI and the Justice Department, while others encouraged users to post the address of Reinhart’s home, with one declaring “I see a rope around his neck”.
Even in its redacted form, publicly disclosing such a document is highly unusual, particularly this early into an investigation.
However, the search on Trump’s Florida property had set off a political firestorm, with some Republicans viewing it as government overreach, while conspiracy theorists among Trump’s base claiming it was a Deep State attempt by the “radical left” to stop the former president from running for re-election.
Trump, meanwhile, has spent weeks fundraising from the FBI’s search, remains in the lead in Republican polls for the presidential nomination, and has previously asserted that he had used his power as president to declassify the documents that FBI retrieved in the search.
In a post on his Truth Social website this afternoon, he also hit out at Judge Reinhart, saying he “should have NEVER allowed the Break-In of my home.”
“A total public relations subterfuge by the FBI and DoJ, or our close working relationship on document turnover – WE GAVE THEM MUCH!” he wrote.
However, the affidavit suggests the decision to execute the FBI search warrant was not made lightly, coming only after a months-long attempt to get Trump to return the material sought by the National Archives in February last year.
The release of the affidavit came after US media outlets – including The New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC and CNN – called for it to be fully unsealed.
“Before the events of this week, not since the Nixon administration had the federal government wielded its power to seize records from a former president in such a public fashion,” they said in a court filing last week.
The Justice Department, however, disagreed, telling court that disclosure would “provide a roadmap to the investigation” into Trump’s potential mishandling of the documents, which he said was still “open and in its early stages”.
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