The United States’ (US) Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) may have seized classified documents related to “nuclear weapons, covert operations, spying and military sources and methods, and other government secrets” from a raid conducted at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago home in Florida last week, as per sources familiar with the investigation.
Trump, however, refuted the allegations as a “hoax” to “silence the voice of a vast majority of the American People” on Saturday. “President Barack Hussein Obama kept 33 million pages of documents, much of them classified. How many of them pertained to nuclear? Word is, lots!,” he alleged on his social media platform, Truth Social.
It’s been over 72 hours since we learned donald trump is being investigated for espionage. Has a single elected republican condemned their leader?
— Bill Pascrell, Jr. 🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@BillPascrell) August 15, 2022
Additionally, in an interview with Fox News on Sunday, the former president suggested that the FBI “could have planted anything they wanted,” as his staff were “asked to stand outside.” He also claimed that the agents “stole my three Passports (one expired), along with everything else.”
However, an official from the Department of Justice (DOJ) revealed that the passports were returned to the ex-president. An FBI spokesperson defended the decision to seize the passports on Monday, saying, “In executing search warrants, the FBI follows search and seizure procedures ordered by courts, then returns items that do not need to be retained for law enforcement purposes.”
BREAKING: Donald Trump says he reached out to the Justice Department to offer “whatever we can do to help,” saying the “temperature has to be brought down.”
— Jon Cooper (@joncoopertweets) August 15, 2022
Who else thinks he needs to be charged with OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE? 🖐️
This came against the backdrop of Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart unsealing the search warrant and property receipt of Trump’s Florida home on Friday. According to the property receipt, the FBI seized 11 sets of classified documents, including “sensitive compartmented information (SCI)” to protect the country’s most important secrets that could cause “exceptionally grave” damage if revealed.
The property receipt also showed that the agents recovered other presidential records, including the order pardoning Trump ally Roger Stone, a “leatherbound box of documents,” information about the “President of France,” a binder of photos, a handwritten note, “miscellaneous secret documents,” and “miscellaneous confidential documents.” However, Trump has insisted that the documents taken were “all declassified,” adding that he would have given them to the DOJ if he had been asked.
So Trump team now publicizing this email, which shows:
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) August 15, 2022
1) DOJ obtained three passports (two expired, not one, as Trump said) and alerted Trump lawyers
2) They were recovered by a filter team, which weeds out privileged info.
3) Trump publicized this after DOJ offered them back pic.twitter.com/lz8wneIQ0a
However, former Trump administration officials revealed that the former president was known to handle secret documents carelessly. “When he was done with a piece of paper, he’d rip it up and throw it on the ground. That was his way of saying he’s done,” a source revealed. “It worried people all the time… Trump had a habit of grabbing intelligence documents,” said John Bolton, one of Trump’s former national security advisers.
In another post on Truth Social on Sunday, Trump “respectfully requested” the FBI to hand over the documents back to him after Fox News reported that some boxes contained “records covered by attorney-client privilege and potentially executive privilege.”
According to the search warrant, the FBI is investigating Trump for violating the Espionage Act, the unlawful removal of public records, and obstruction of justice. In fact, the punishment for violating the Espionage Act was increased from one year to five years during Trump’s presidency in an effort to indict former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Attorney General Merrick Garland Delivers Remarks Announcing Motion to Unseal Search Warrant https://t.co/ef1DsZybp0
— Justice Department (@TheJusticeDept) August 11, 2022
Meanwhile, in a statement on Thursday, US Attorney General Merrick Garland admitted that the search warrant was “personally approved” by him and that the decision to do so was not taken “lightly.”
In addition, the DOJ has filed a motion to keep the details of the Trump investigation secret, as revealing details could “serve as a roadmap to the government’s ongoing investigation, providing specific details about its direction and likely course, in a manner that is highly likely to compromise future investigative steps.” The DOJ also said that the evidence consisted of “highly classified materials.”
Remember when the FBI ignored blatant corruption by Ukraine with lavish oil money payments to Hunter Biden?
— Rep. Paul Gosar, DDS (@RepGosar) August 15, 2022
America remembers.
DEFUND & DISMANTLE!
“Information about witnesses is particularly sensitive given the high-profile nature of this matter and the risk that the revelation of witness identities would impact their willingness to cooperate with the investigation,” the prosecutors further reasoned.
Trump has opined that the “witch hunt” against him could result in civil unrest, warning that “It is a very dangerous time for our country.” In fact, a few armed Trump supporters held a demonstration outside the FBI’s Phoenix office on Saturday.