The Department of Justice published this Friday the affidavit (edited to hide information that would jeopardize the investigation) that justified the search warrant at the beginning of the month of the residence of former President Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago (Florida), where FBI agents seized top secret documents that he took from the White House in January 2021.
The 13-page document is largely redacted to "protect the safety and privacy of a significant number of civilian witnesses, as well as law enforcement officers," it says, noting that the reasons for the search are based on numerous testimonies but without revealing who they were.
It reveals that one of the reasons for the search was to protect the identity of "clandestine human sources" used during intelligence gathering, whose identities appeared in documents improperly stored on Trump property.
An FBI special agent assures in the document that the search was carried out within the framework of a criminal investigation that began as a result of a request from the National Archives (NARA) on February 9 in search of files highly classified that Trump had taken to Mar-a-Lago.
It also points to the lack of "cooperation" in the delivery of the documents stored in the former president's property, pointing out the rooms of the mansion where the papers were and how these are not an appropriate place to store secret information.
Most of the reasons that justified the search are hidden by the Department of Justice so that they remain secret and thus not damage the investigation, although a journalistic report of the transfer of documents to Mar-a-Lago is mentioned.
It specifically mentions the 15 boxes of secret documents recovered earlier, in January, from Mar-a-Lago.
In 14 of them there were 184 classified papers and 25 marked as "TOP SECRET" (ultra secret).
The August search presumably occurred because the Justice Department thought those previously recovered documents were not all that were at Mar-a-Lago.
The "probable cause" of the FBI record
“I am a special agent with the FBI assigned to the Washington field office,” states the author of the affidavit.
“I have received training at the FBI academy in Quantico, Virginia, in counterintelligence and espionage missions,” he adds.
“Based on my experience and training, I am familiar with efforts to illegally collect, store, and disseminate sensitive government information, including classified national defense information,” he reads in a section of the document.
It concludes that there is "probable cause" to believe that there are items whose illegal possession violates various federal regulations.
The document offers few details about an investigation without historical precedent at a time when the former president is laying the groundwork for his possible presidential candidacy.
Avoid revealing confidential details about testimonies that could affect the investigations, or about the agents who participated in the search, especially after the threats against the FBI, which even led to an armed attack on its offices in Cincinnati.
It indicates that under federal law, there is a penalty of up to 10 years in prison for those who possess classified information illegally, share it or attempt to transmit it.
Trump's residence at Mar-a-Lago on August 10. Steve Helber / AP
An affidavit usually contains vital information about an investigation, explaining to the judge the justification for searching a particular property and what evidence of a possible crime may be found.
But they usually remain secret during ongoing investigations, making a judge's decision to reveal part of it all the more surprising.
In an acknowledgment of the public interest in the investigation, Judge Bruce Reinhart ordered the Justice Department on Thursday to release the redacted version of the affidavit he had provided to him, redacted to hide sensitive information.
Although the Justice Department's proposed edits obscure the full view, the document helps explain why federal agents felt compelled to search Trump's mansion, after months of trying to obtain the records by other methods (including requiring them to the).
The FBI recovered 11 sets of classified documents, including information marked top secret.
The court order reveals that federal agents are investigating possible violations of the espionage law for having collected, transmitted or lost classified information;
as well as other statutes on the concealment, mutilation or elimination of records and the destruction, alteration or falsification of records in federal investigations.
They confirm that Trump kept more than 100 classified documents in his house, several with high-level secrets
Aug. 24, 202201:34
A letter published this week revealed that the National Archives and Records Administration recovered more than 100 documents marked classified, totaling more than 700 pages, in a batch of 15 boxes that the president's attorneys turned over to it earlier this year ( that is, a year after leaving the White House, taking them with him despite the fact that federal law prohibits it).