During a raid on Donald Trump’s house, the FBI is looking for secret documents that actually belong in the national archives. The officials find it. This could have legal repercussions for the former US President.
Eleven classified documents, including some marked top secret, were seized during the FBI raid on former US President Donald Trump’s home. However, the list of confiscated documents does not contain details of their contents. The search warrant, released by the Justice Department, also shows that the FBI is investigating Trump for possible violations of the Espionage Act.
The investigation documents show that some of the documents found can only be viewed in special government institutions. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents took away 20 boxes of items, folders of photos, a handwritten note and a plea for clemency for Trump ally Roger Stone, a list of items removed from the home shows. By law, Trump should have given all documents to the National Archives.
Trump’s attorneys argue that the former president exercised his power to declassify the footage before he left office. While a president has the authority to release documents, there are federal regulations that set out the process for doing so.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland had previously defended the request for a search warrant against massive criticism from Trump and those around him. “I personally endorsed the decision to seek a search warrant,” Garland said. “The search warrant was granted by a federal court following the required determination of reasonable suspicion.” Garland added, “The Department does not take such a decision lightly. Wherever possible, less intrusive means will be sought as an alternative to a search, and any search will be strictly limited.”
The federal police FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in the US state of Florida last Monday. The process is considered unprecedented in US history. The pressure on Garland had since grown to take a stand. Trump was not at his home during the search. He and other Republicans have strongly criticized the search and accused Democratic US President Joe Biden of politicizing the FBI. According to the White House, Biden did not know in advance about the search of the Trump property.
Trump wrote on Friday on the network he co-founded Truth Social that had the authorities asked him about it, he would have given them all the documents. “The bigger problem is what are they going to do with the 33 million pages of documents, many classified, that President Obama took with him to Chicago?” he wrote in the same message. Trump had previously made the same claim without providing any supporting evidence. The National Archives then contradicted Trump and stated that his predecessor Obama had not kept any secret documents after his departure.
Earlier this year it became known that the National Archives, which is responsible for storing presidential correspondence, suspected several boxes with confidential material in Mar-a-Lago. Trump finally handed over several documents to the agency in January. According to US media reports, there was then a further exchange between investigators and Trump’s lawyers. Officials suspected that Trump or his team were continuing to withhold important documents, the Washington Post wrote, citing anonymous sources.
