(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Top-Secret Documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago: What We Know [1]
['Intelligencer Staff']
Date: 2022-08-26 12:30:00-04:00
Photo: Brandon Bell/Getty Images
Weeks after the FBI searched Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, the former president and many of his Republican allies continue to rage against federal law enforcement — even after a warrant revealed that agents were investigating potential violations of the Espionage Act and that they’d found multiple top-secret documents. The warrant was unsealed August 12, a day after Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that the Justice Department had filed a motion in court to do so. Although reporting indicates that the FBI was seeking documents involving nuclear secrets at Mar-a-Lago, there are still many questions about what they were trying to find and whether they found it. A partially redacted version of the affidavit used to obtain the warrant was released on Friday, August 26 shortly after noon.
Here’s what we’ve learned so far about the investigation of the former president and the aftermath of the stunning Mar-a-Lago raid.
What did the search find?
The agents who searched the resort found documents in a basement storage area and in Trump’s office closet. The receipt of property attached to the search warrant, which lists what the FBI took from the premises, includes dozens of entries. Eleven of those entries refer to classified materials ranging from most to least classified. One entry contains “various classified/TS/SCI documents,” which by law must be kept in a secure government facility akin to a vault. There are four sets of top-secret documents, three of secret documents, and three of confidential documents.
This year, in total, over 300 documents with classified information have been retrieved from Mar-a-Lago, according to the New York Times, and investigators are reportedly now seeking additional surveillance footage from the resort.
The Thursday after the raid, the Washington Post reported that agents believed some of the documents they went to look for involved nuclear weapons, but this was before the search, and it is not known if such documents were recovered. It was also not clear whether they pertain to U.S. weapons or those of a foreign country or what the precise sensitivity of the documents was. In response to the reporting, Trump said on Truth Social that the “nuclear weapons issue is a hoax.”
The FBI also recovered an executive grant of clemency for Roger Stone (granted before Trump left office), “info re: President of France,” a handwritten note, a leather-bound box of documents, and binders of photos.
What’s in the affidavit?
In the partially redacted affidavit released on August 26 confirmed much of the previous reporting into the search: That 14 out of 15 boxes retrieved from Mar-a-Lago prior to the raid had classified records, with 25 documents designated top secret. It states that “there is also probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found at the PREMISES.”
What does the warrant say?
The search was related to potential violations of three laws including the Espionage Act: One of the laws concerns the “concealment, removal or mutilation” of classified materials; the second, “gathering, transmitting or losing” materials; and the third, obstructing an investigation into these matters. The Espionage Act, which governs classified information that could harm national security if released, has been used to prosecute both foreign spies and domestic leakers from Daniel Ellsberg to Reality Winner. The warrant, which does not list Trump by name, does not accuse him or any other individual of breaking the law.
The warrant goes on to describe the premises of “FPOTUS” (former president of the U.S.) being searched and what sorts of items federal agents were seeking.
What caused the Feds to go looking?
Garland said during remarks on August 11 that he would not explain why he personally signed off on seeking a search warrant but that the department “does not take such a decision lightly. Where possible, it is standard practice to seek less intrusive means as an alternative to a search and to narrowly scope any search that is undertaken.”
The affidavit filed by investigators to get the warrant was initially sealed, and the Justice Department resisted making it public, saying that doing so could jeopardize the ongoing investigation. But on Thursday, August 25 Judge Bruce Reinhart, who approved the warrant, ordered that a redacted version of the affidavit be released by noon the following day. Reinhart approved all of the deletions proposed by DOJ. Per Politico:
Reinhart emphasized that prosecutors had shown “good cause” to redact elements of the affidavit that would reveal “the identities of witnesses, law enforcement agents, and uncharged parties,” “the investigation’s strategy, direction, scope, sources, and methods” and “grand jury information.”
Even before the affidavit’s release, reporters had unearthed a lot of the background for the warrant.
In January, the National Archives and Records Administration retrieved 15 boxes of documents and items from Mar-a-Lago that agency officials said Trump should have handed over to it when he left the White House. NARA reportedly found 150 classified documents among the materials it retrieved — including over 700 pages of classified material and “special access program materials,” one of the highest designations. The agency alerted the Justice Department, which opened a grand-jury investigation into the matter. The January cache included documents pertaining to national security from the CIA, the National Security Agency, and the FBI. In late 2021, Trump had gone through the boxes himself.
Christina Bobb, a Trump lawyer and onetime OAN anchor, said the former president’s legal team was in contact with the Justice Department about the investigation this spring. John Solomon, a conservative journalist who Trump designated as one of his representatives to NARA, revealed that Trump received a grand-jury subpoena for classified documents two months ago. He said the Trump team cooperated, turning over materials and surveillance footage that showed who had access to the area where they were stored. Trump’s attorneys arranged for a DOJ National Security Division prosecutor and three FBI agents to come to Mar-a-Lago on June 3 and pick up the items listed in the subpoena. Here’s the Post’s account of the meeting:
In June, Bobb said, she and Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran met with Jay Bratt, the chief of the counterintelligence and export control section at the Justice Department, along with several investigators. Trump stopped by the meeting as it began, to greet the investigators, but was not interviewed. The lawyers showed the federal officials the boxes, and Bratt and the others spent some time looking through the material.
Bobb said the Justice Department officials commented that they did not believe the storage unit was properly secured, so Trump officials added a lock to the facility. When FBI agents searched the property Monday, Bobb added, they broke through the lock that had been added to the door.
According to the New York Times, at least one Trump lawyer signed a written statement following the June 3 pickup asserting all classified material at Mar-a-Lago had been turned over. Indeed, Trump associates have expressed shock over how their cordial interactions with the DOJ ended in a raid. But according to The Wall Street Journal, sometime after June 3, a mole in Trump’s orbit told the FBI that the former president’s team was still withholding information:
In the following weeks, however, someone familiar with the stored papers told investigators there may be still more classified documents at the private club after the National Archives retrieved 15 boxes earlier in the year, people familiar with the matter said.
The Justice Department also reportedly believed the classified material was not being securely stored, based on the Mar-a-Lago surveillance footage they had seen. According to people familiar with the investigation who spoke with the Journal, the decision to conduct the raid “had been the subject of weeks of meetings between senior Justice Department and FBI officials.”
The Feds were aware of the absence of some documents including Trump’s letters to Kim Jong-un and the note Barack Obama left for him in the White House. Trump reportedly considered these items “mine.”
FBI officials were then able to establish probable cause and obtain a search warrant from a federal magistrate judge in West Palm Beach to find it, according to the Miami Herald. The New York Times reported on August 11 that the material in question was so sensitive that DOJ officials felt they had to take the “politically explosive step” of raiding the former president’s home.
How has Trump responded?
The former president was the first to break the news of the raid on August 8, releasing a written statement that evening in which he attempted to frame the search as an unjustified, politically motivated attack on him by the Biden administration and Democrats. As more details have emerged about the raid, Trump and his allies have made a number of additional claims.
Declassification.
Trump and allies have maintained that none of the documents taken to Mar-a-Lago were classified because Trump, as president, had orally bulk-declassified everything he wanted to take home shortly before leaving office. There was, according to one Trump representative, a “standing order” that “documents removed from the Oval Office and taken to the residence were deemed to be declassified the moment he removed them.” As the New York Times’ Charlie Savage has explained, even if that is true and there is some evidence of his having done this, that doesn’t mean it was legal for him to take the documents home and keep them. The argument, Savage notes, is legally irrelevant to the matter at hand.
Targeting the FBI and DOJ.
Trump has repeatedly attacked the FBI and Justice Department, alleging that the search was improperly conducted, insinuating that the FBI agents planted evidence, and complaining that agents made a mess of his wife’s closets. Trump also claimed that the FBI seized his passports.
His allies have followed suit. The night of the raid, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy vowed to investigate Garland’s handling of the matter if the GOP regains control of the House next year. One Florida lawmaker, State Representative Anthony Sabatini, went as far as calling for the state to “sever all ties with DOJ immediately” and arrest FBI agents carrying out law-enforcement functions “upon sight.”
Stolen passports.
On August 15, Trump alleged that the FBI “stole my three Passports (one expired), along with everything else.” But according to an email from the Justice Department to Trump’s lawyers, sent shortly before Trump made his allegation, the DOJ had already said it was returning them by that point. “We have learned that the filter agents seized three passports belonging to President Trump, two expired and one being his active diplomatic passport,” a Justice Department official wrote. “We are returning them, and they will be ready for pickup at WFO at 2 pm today,” referring to the Washington Field Office.
Trump implied he learned it from watching Obama.
Trump has also alleged, falsely, that Barack Obama improperly took millions of White House documents to Chicago after his presidency ended. In fact, NARA responded, Obama and his staff followed the rules, and the agency has maintained full control of the records Trump alluded to — which will eventually be stored at Obama’s presidential library.
What was the impact of Trump’s attacks?
The allegations Trump and his allies directed at the FBI and Justice Department have led to a spike in threats against law enforcement. On Friday, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security issued a joint bulletin warning that they “have observed an increase in threats to federal law enforcement and to a lesser extent other law enforcement and government officials” since the raid. The judge who signed the search warrant for Mar-a-Lago has also reportedly been subject to threats. And on August 11, a gunman who had been a January 6 protester at the U.S. Capitol in 2021 tried to attack the FBI’s office in Cincinnati before being killed by police.
What happened during the search?
The search of Mar-a-Lago began at 9 a.m. on August 8. The Secret Service was reportedly notified right beforehand and “facilitated access to the Florida Trump property as fellow federal agents but did not take part in investigation or search,” per NBC News’ Kelly O’Donnell. The Feds, who were in plainclothes, reportedly left around 6:30 p.m. Mar-a-Lago is currently closed to members on account of the summer heat in Florida. The White House said it first learned of the search from reports.
While Trump depicted the search as a Watergate-like break-in by the Feds, the scene was pretty subdued, according to the New York Times:
The agents carried out the search in a relatively low-key manner, people with knowledge of the matter said; by some accounts they were not seen donning the conspicuous navy-blue jackets with the agency’s initials emblazoned on the back that are commonly worn when executing search warrants.
Another person familiar with the search said agents began going through a storage unit, where items like beach chairs and umbrellas are kept, in the basement. They progressed to his office, which was built for him on the second floor of the main house, where they cracked a hotel-style safe that was said by two people briefed on the search to contain nothing of consequence to the agents.
Then they moved to Mr. Trump’s residence, the person said.
Former aides tell New York they recall a safe at Mar-a-Lago and another at Trump Tower in Manhattan, where Trump kept tens of thousands of dollars in cash, which he once scooped into a shopping bag before traveling. The FBI reportedly had to break into the hotel-style safe, which is in his office, a former bridal suite above the estate’s ballroom.
Trump was notorious for mishandling and/or destroying documents during his presidency. Some White House records obtained by the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection had been torn up and taped back together. The former president reportedly liked to try to flush documents down the toilet. A senior administration official once told the Washington Post that White House staff members made sure they never left documents containing classified or sensitive information with Trump.
This post has been updated throughout.
Sign Up for the Intelligencer Newsletter Daily news about the politics, business, and technology shaping our world. Email This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/08/donald-trump-says-the-fbi-raided-his-home-at-mar-a-lago.html
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
