Trump allies claim the former president declassified the documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago which include high-level nuclear weapons secrets.
By Alex Leary, Aruna Viswanatha & Sadie Gurman | The Wall Street Journal | AUG. 12, 2022 | Photo by Evelyn Hockstein
FBI agents who searched former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home Monday removed 11 sets of classified documents, including some marked as top secret and meant to be only available in special government facilities, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation agents took around 20 boxes of items, binders of photos, a handwritten note and the executive grant of clemency for Mr. Trump’s ally Roger Stone, a list of items removed from the property shows. Also included in the list was information about the “President of France,” according to the three-page list. The list is contained in a seven-page document that also includes the warrant to search the premiseswhich was granted by a federal magistrate judge in Florida.
The list includes references to one set of documents marked as “Various classified/TS/SCI documents,” an abbreviation that refers to top-secret/sensitive compartmented information. It also says agents collected four sets of top secret documents, three sets of secret documents, and three sets of confidential documents. The list didn’t provide any more details about the substance of the documents.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers argue that the former president used his authority to declassify the material before he left office. While a president has the power to declassify documents, there are federal regulations that lay out a process for doing so.
A list of documents recovered from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., cites 20 boxes of items, binders of photos and a handwritten note. PHOTO: GIORGIO VIERA/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
“The Biden administration is in obvious damage control after their botched raid where they seized the President’s picture books, a ‘hand written note,’ and declassified documents,” said Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich. “This raid of President Trump’s home was not just unprecedented, but unnecessary.”
The search and seizure warrant, signed by U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, shows that FBI agents sought to search “the 45 Office,” as well as “all storage rooms and all other rooms or areas within the premises used or available to be used by [the former president] and his staff and in which boxes or documents could be stored, including all structures or buildings on the estate.”
They didn’t seek access to search private guest rooms, such as those of Mar-a-Lago members, according to the document.
Former President Donald Trump, departing Trump Tower in New York Wednesday, has said he wouldn’t oppose releasing the search warrant. PHOTO: JULIA NIKHINSON/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Former President Donald Trump, departing Trump Tower in New York Wednesday, has said he wouldn’t oppose releasing the search warrant.PHOTO: JULIA NIKHINSON/ASSOCIATED PRESS
The former president and his team don’t have the affidavit, which would provide more detail about the FBI’s investigation, according to people familiar with the process. An affidavit would explain what evidence, including witnesses, the government had collected and describe why investigators believe that a crime may have been committed. Mr. Trump’s lawyers have asked for a more specific account of what was removed from Mar-a-Lago.
The disclosure of the warrant and the inventory marks the culmination of an extraordinary week, which began last Friday at 12:12 p.m., when the judge signed off on the unprecedented warrant to search a former president’s home. Three days later, at 6:19 p.m., a lawyer for Mr. Trump, Christina Bobb, signed a receipt for the items the FBI took that day.
To the Justice Department, the search was the result of a monthslong effort to get the classified documents remaining in Mr. Trump’s possession after at least two prior attempts. They were at first primarily interested in securing the documents, but pursued a criminal investigation as they began to doubt that Mr. Trump’s team was being forthright about the documents still in their possession, people familiar with the matter said.
To Mr. Trump’s allies, the search was a heavy-handed approach to obtaining documents they say Mr. Trump was willing to return and was in the process of negotiating the return. Mr. Trump, in a post on his social-media platform Thursday, said his representatives had been “cooperating fully” and added, “The government could have had whatever they wanted, if we had it.”
