Pages from the FBI’s affidavit in support of obtaining a search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate are photographed showing large redacted portions. (Jon Elswick/AP)
The release of a redacted affidavit that the Justice Department used to obtain a search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home shed new light on the federal investigation into the handling of documents from his White House.
The unsealed court filing Friday went into previously unknown details about classified information found in boxes recovered from Trump’s Florida resort in January. He also confirmed aspects of the timeline of how the investigation unfolded.
The file shows, among other things, that documents that may have been illegally tampered with at Mar-a-Lago contained some of America’s most sensitive secrets.
Here are some of the key points from the newly released paper:
The FBI said there was likely “obstruction evidence” and classified defense documents
The FBI told U.S. Magistrate Bruce Reinhart that the search would likely find “evidence of obstruction” in addition to its explanation in court that there was “probable cause to believe” that classified national security materials were taken improperly to “unauthorized” sites in Trump. resource
The FBI found 184 classified documents from 15 boxes earlier this year
In May, when the FBI reviewed the 15 boxes the National Archives recovered from the Florida compound in January, it found “184 unique documents with classification markings,” the affidavit said.
Among the materials were “67 documents marked CONFIDENTIAL, 92 documents marked SECRET, and 25 documents marked TOP SECRET,” according to the filing.
First, new details on how the DOJ got involved in the document scramble
The FBI’s investigation began after a criminal referral from the National Archives, dated Feb. 9, in which the Archives said the boxes contained “many classified records.”
The Archives official said there was “significant concern” that “highly classified records were … mixed in with other records” and were not properly identified.
The newsrooms are keeping the obstruction tests secret for now
The third potential offense—obstruction—that was cited by the warrant materials has no corresponding unredacted subchapter in the affidavit. The FBI would have had to provide the court with its explanation of why it believed there was probable evidence of this crime at Mar-a-Lago, so the absence of any unredacted details about that evidence indicates that this part of the department is particularly sensitive. that this aspect of his research be made public.
The DOJ is keeping details about the personnel involved close to its chest
The department said in its legal brief that it justified the memos that FBI personnel who had already been identified as involved in the investigation had received “threats of violence from members of the public.”
The FBI told the judge that “[m]Minor redactions to the affidavit were necessary to “protect the safety of law enforcement personnel.”
CNN’s Jeremy Herb and Katelyn Polantz contributed to this report.