WASHINGTON-
Fourteen of 15 boxes recovered from former US President Donald Trump’s Florida estate earlier this year contained documents with classification marks, including at the top secret level, according to an FBI affidavit released Friday explaining the justification for this month’s property search.
The 32-page affidavit, even in its heavily redacted form, offers the most detailed description to date of government records stored at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property long after he left the White House and reveals the seriousness of the government’s concerns that the documents were there illegally.
“The government is conducting a criminal investigation into the improper disposal and storage of classified information in unauthorized spaces, as well as the unlawful concealment or removal of government records,” an FBI agent wrote on the first page of the affidavit. seeking permission from a judge. a warrant to search the property.
The affidavit does not provide new details about the 11 sets of classified records recovered during the Aug. 8 search at Mar-a-Lago, but instead refers to a separate batch of 15 boxes that the National Archives and Records Administration recovered from the house in January.
In those boxes, according to the affidavit, officials located 184 documents with classification marks, including 25 documents marked top secret. Agents who inspected the boxes found markings related to information provided by confidential human sources, as well as information related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Taken together, the affidavit reveals additional details about an ongoing criminal investigation that has brought new legal danger to Trump just as he lays the groundwork for another presidential bid. It also shows in great detail the volume of sensitive government documents that were stored at Mar-a-Lago instead of being delivered to the National Archives.
The FBI submitted the affidavit to a judge so it could obtain a search warrant for Trump’s property. Affidavits typically contain vital information about an investigation, with officers explaining in detail why they want to search a particular property and why they believe they are likely to find evidence of a possible crime there.
In a separate document released Friday, Justice Department officials explained that certain information needed to be redacted to “protect the safety and privacy of a significant number of civilian witnesses, as well as law enforcement personnel, as well as to protect the integrity of ongoing investigations.
Affidavits typically remain sealed during pending investigations, which makes Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart’s decision to reveal parts of them all the more surprising.
In an acknowledgment of the extraordinary public interest in the investigation, Reinhart ordered the department Thursday to release a redacted version of the affidavit on Friday. The directive came hours after federal law enforcement officers filed under seal portions of the affidavit they wanted to keep secret as the investigation progresses.
Documents made public earlier show that the FBI recovered 11 sets of classified documents from the property, including information marked at the top secret level. They also show that federal agents are investigating possible violations of three federal laws, including one governing the collection, transmission or loss of defense information under the Espionage Act. The other statutes address the concealment, mutilation, or elimination of records and the destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations.
It’s possible that the affidavit, particularly in its unredacted form, could shed light on key unanswered questions, including why confidential presidential documents — classified documents, among them — were transported to Mar-a-Lago after Trump left office. White House and why Trump and his representatives did not provide all the material to the National Archives and Records Administration despite repeated requests.
It could also offer additional details about the back-and-forth between Trump and the FBI, including a subpoena for documents that was issued last spring, as well as a June visit by FBI and Justice Department officials to assess how the materials were being stored. . .
The Justice Department had previously disputed arguments by media organizations for releasing the affidavit, saying any release could contain private information about witnesses and investigative tactics. But Reinhart, acknowledging the extraordinary public interest in the investigation, said last week that he was unwilling to keep the entire document sealed and told federal officials to privately submit the redactions he wanted to make to him.
In his Thursday order, Reinhart said the department had made a compelling case for sealing wide swaths of the document that, if released, would reveal grand jury information; the identities of witnesses and “non-accused parties”; and details about the “strategy, direction, scope, sources and methods” of the investigation.
But he also said he was satisfied “that the Government has met its burden to demonstrate that the proposed redactions are narrowly tailored to serve the Government’s legitimate interest in the integrity of the ongoing investigation and are the least onerous alternative to sealing the entire sworn declaration”.