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Fourteen of the 15 boxes recovered from former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate early this year contained classified documents, many of them top secret, mixed in with miscellaneous newspapers, magazines and personal correspondence, according to an FBI affidavit released Friday.
No space at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate was authorized for the storage of classified material, according to the court papers, which laid out the FBI’s rationale for searching the property this month, including probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found.
The 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. It also reveals the gravity of the government’s concerns that the documents were there illegally.
The document makes clear how the haphazard retention of top secret government records, and the failure to return them despite months of efforts by US officials to get them back, has exposed Trump to fresh legal peril just as he lays the groundwork for another potential presidential run in 2024.
The government is 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, an FBI agent wrote on the first page of the affidavit in seeking a judge’s permission for a warrant to search the property.
Documents previously made public show that federal agents are investigating potential violations of three 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.
Trump has long insisted, despite clear evidence to the contrary, that he fully cooperated with government officials. And he has rallied Republicans behind him by painting the search as a politically motivated witch hunt intended to damage his reelection prospects. He repeated that refrain on his social media site Friday, saying he and his representatives had had a close working relationship with the FBI and GAVE THEM MUCH.
