Mar-a-Lago search affidavit released, with blacked-out redactions: ‘Additional documents remain at the premises’
The Justice Department released a heavily blacked-out 32-page affidavit explaining the justification for an FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate on Aug. 8, in which agents confiscatedtop secret government records and other classified documents.
Fourteen of the 15 boxes recovered from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home contained classified documents, many of them top secret, mixed in with miscellaneous newspapers, magazines and personal correspondence, according to an FBI affidavit released Friday.
The redacted documents offer the most detailed description to date of the government records that Trump took with him after leaving the White House. It also reveals the gravity of the government’s concerns that the documents were there illegally.
Pages from the affidavit by the FBI in support of obtaining a search warrant for former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate are photographed Friday, Aug. 26, 2022. (Jon Elswick/)
“There is probable cause to believe that additional documents .... remain at the PREMISES,” an unidentified FBI special agent wrote in the affidavit. “There is also probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found at the PREMISES.”
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.
An aerial view of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla. (Steve Helber/)
Trump slammed the search, and suggested the redacted affidavit shows that Reinhart was wrong to approve it.
“Judge Bruce Reinhart should NEVER have allowed the Break-In of my home,” Trump wrote on his social media platform, falsely claiming that he cooperated fully with document demands.
The affidavit offers a further description of the events leading up to the unprecedented search of Mar-a-Lago, including the FBI’s initial assessment of the secret documents that Trump voluntarily coughed up.
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“Highly classified records were unfoldered, intermixed with other records and otherwise unproperly identified,” the special agent said.
“A preliminary triage of the documents with classification markings revealed the following approximate numbers: 184 unique documents bearing classification markings, including 67 documents marked as CONFIDENTIAL, 92 documents marked as SECRET and 25 documents marked as TOP SECRET,” the agent said.
Some of the documents appeared to have Trump’s handwritten notes on them.
DOJ's Redacted Affidavit Justifying Trump Mar a Lago Raid by New York Daily News on Scribd
The extensive trove of documents that Trump improperly kept at Mar-a-Lago led the FBI to continue its investigation, although the unredacted portion of the affidavit gives few clues about how or why.
The affidavit argued a search of Mar-a-Lago was necessary due to the highly sensitive material found in the boxes recovered by the National Archives. Of 184 documents marked classified, 25 were at the top secret level, the affidavit said. Some had special markings suggesting they included information from highly sensitive human sources or the collection of electronic “signals” authorized by a special intelligence court.
FILE - Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally Friday, Aug. 5, 2022, in Waukesha, Wis. (Morry Gash/)
U.S. Magistrate Judge Reinhart ordered the Justice Department to make public a redacted version of the affidavit after he accepted prosecutors’ suggested redactions.
Trump has demanded the release of a completely unredacted version of the affidavit, although he did not make that plea to Reinhart.
Federal prosecutors successfully argued to Reinhart that releasing most of the affidavit would provide a “road map” to anyone looking to interfere with the probe, a less-than-subtle suggestion that Trump could seek to keep witnesses from cooperating.
The feds say “several witnesses” could be put in danger by the premature release of their identities, suggesting there could be several leaks within Trump’s loyal inner circle.
Some of those classified records were mixed with other documents, including newspapers, magazines and miscellaneous printouts, the affidavit said, citing a letter from the Archives.
Douglas London, a former senior CIA officer and author of “The Recruiter,” said this showed Trump’s lack of respect for controls. “One of the rules of classified is you don’t mix classified and unclassified, so there’s no mistakes or accidents,” he said.
With News Wire Services
