Fresh legal peril for Trump as classified documents found
FOURTEEN of the 15 boxes recovered from former US president Donald Trump’s Florida estate earlier this year contained documents with classification markings, according to an FBI affidavit released explaining the justification for the search of the property this month.
The 32-page affidavit, even in its redacted form, contains additional details about an ongoing criminal investigation that has brought fresh legal peril for Mr Trump just as he lays the groundwork for another presidential run.
It underscores the volume of sensitive government documents located at Mar-a-Lago and reveals FBI concerns that the records were being retained illegally.
Though the document offers the most substantial description of the investigation, federal officials also redacted significant portions of it to protect the identity of witnesses and to avoid revealing sensitive investigative tactics.
“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
The affidavit does not provide new details about the 11 sets of classified records recovered during the August 8 search at Mar-a-Lago but instead concerns a separate batch of 15 boxes that the National Archives and Records Administration retrieved from the home in January.
In those boxes, according to the affidavit, officials located 184 documents bearing classification markings, including 25 documents marked as top secret.
Some of those classified records were mixed with other documents, including newspapers, magazines and miscellaneous print-outs, the affidavit says, citing a letter from the Archives.
In an acknowledgment of the extraordinary public interest in the investigation, US Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart on Thursday ordered the department by Friday to make public a redacted version of the affidavit.