(MENAFN- Trend News Agency)
FBI agents who searched former President Donald Trump's Florida
home this week removed 11 sets of classified documents including
some marked as top secret, the U.S. Justice Department said on
Friday while also disclosing that prosecutors had probable cause to
believe Trump may have violated the Espionage Act, Trend reports citing
Reuters .
The bombshell disclosures were made in a search warrant and
accompanying legal documents released four days after FBI agents
carried out the search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm
Beach based on a warrant approved by a federal magistrate
judge.
Trump, in a statement on his social media platform, said the
records at issue were 'all declassified' and placed in 'secure
storage.'
'They didn't need to 'seize' anything. They could have had it
anytime they wanted without playing politics and breaking into
Mar-a-Lago,' the Republican businessman-turned-politician said.
The Justice Department said in the warrant application approved
by U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart that it had probable cause
to believe that Trump may have violated the Espionage Act, a
federal law that prohibits the possession or transmission of
national defense information.
The department also said it had concerns he may have broken
several other statutes related to the mishandling of government
records including one that makes it a crime to try to hide or
destroy government documents regardless of whether they are
classified.
FBI agents took more than 30 items including more than 20 boxes,
binders of photos, a handwritten note and the executive grant of
clemency for Trump's ally and longtime adviser Roger Stone, a list
of items removed from the property showed. Also included in the
list was information about the 'President of France.'
The warrant showed that FBI agents asked to search a room called
'the 45 Office' - Trump was the 45th U.S. president - as well as
all other rooms, structures of buildings on the estate used by
Trump or his staff where boxes or documents could be stored.
There are three primary levels of classification for sensitive
government materials: Top secret, secret, and confidential.
'Top secret' is the highest level of classification, reserved
for the country's most closely held national security information.
Such documents usually are kept in special government facilities
because disclosure could cause grave damage to national
security.
FBI agents on Monday collected four sets of top secret
documents, three sets of secret documents and three sets of
confidential documents, the documents showed. They also showed that
agents collected a set of documents labeled 'classified/TS/SCI
documents' - a reference to top secret and sensitive compartmented
material.
While a sitting president has authority to declassify materials,
there was no indication in any of the documents released on Friday
that Trump had done so prior to leaving office in January 2021.
AN ESCALATION
Monday's search of Trump's home marked a significant escalation
in one of the many federal and state investigations he is facing
from his time in office and in private business, including a
separate one by the Justice Department into a failed bid by Trump's
allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election by submitting
phony slates of electors.
Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday announced that the
department asked Reinhart to unseal the warrant. This followed
Trump's claim that the search was political retribution and a
suggestion by him, without evidence, that the FBI may have planted
evidence against him.
The investigation into Trump's removal of records started this
year, after the National Archives and Records Administration, an
agency charged with safeguarding presidential records that belong
to the public, made a referral to the department.
On Friday, Republican members of the U.S. House of
Representatives Intelligence Committee called on Garland and FBI
Director Chris Wray to release the affidavit underpinning the
warrant, saying the public needs to know.
'Because many other options were available to them, we're very
concerned of the method that was used in raiding Mar-a-Lago,'
Representative Michael Turner, the committee's top Republican, told
reporters.
If the affidavit remains sealed, 'it will still leave many
unanswered questions,' Turner added.
In February, Archivist of the United States David Ferriero told
House lawmakers that his agency had been in communication with
Trump throughout 2021 about the return of 15 boxes of records. He
eventually returned them in January 2022.
At the time, the National Archives was still conducting an
inventory, but noted some of the boxes contained items 'marked as
classified national security information.' Trump previously
confirmed that he had agreed to return certain records to the
Archives, calling it 'an ordinary and routine process.' He also
claimed the Archives 'did not 'find' anything.'
Since Monday's search, the Justice Department has faced fierce
criticism and online threats, which Garland have condemned. Trump
supporters and some of his fellow Republicans in Washington have
accused Democrats of weaponizing the federal bureaucracy to target
him even as he mulls another run for the presidency in 2024.
In another matter, Trump on Wednesday declined to answer
questions during an appearance before New York state's attorney
general in a civil investigation into his family's business
practices, citing his constitutional right against
self-incrimination.
Earlier on Friday, Trump denied a Washington Post report that
the FBI search of his home was for possible classified materials
related to nuclear weapons, writing on his social media account
that the 'nuclear weapons issue is a hoax.'
Reuters could not immediately confirm the Washington Post
report. Garland has declined to publicly detail the nature of the
investigation.
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