U.S. Justice Dept. releases redacted document that underpins Trump Mar-a-Lago search

Record ID: 1686391

  • Title: U.S. Justice Dept. releases redacted document that underpins Trump Mar-a-Lago search
  • Date: 26th August 2022
  • Summary: PALM BEACH, FLORIDA, UNITED STATES (FILE - AUGUST 15, 2022) (Reuters) VARIOUS DRONE FOOTAGE OF FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP'S MAR-A-LAGO ESTATE PALM BEACH, FLORIDA, UNITED STATES (FILE - APRIL 5, 2017) (Reuters) VARIOUS OF EXTERIOR OF MAR-A-LAGO MAN ON PADDLEBOARD VARIOUS OF EXTERIOR OF MAR-A-LAGO
  • Embargoed: 9th September 2022 18:50
  • Keywords: Donald Trump FBI search Mar-a-Lago affidavit documents
  • Location: PALM BEACH, FLORIDA AND WASHINGTON D.C., UNITED STATES
  • City: PALM BEACH, FLORIDA AND WASHINGTON D.C., UNITED STATES
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Government/Politics,United States
  • Reuters ID: LVA001093426082022RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: The U.S. Justice Department on Friday (August 26) released a redacted version of the legal document that allowed the FBI to seize classified government records from former President Donald Trump's Florida home.
    The affidavit revealed some new details about the classified documents Trump kept at his Mar-a-Lago home until January this year, from handwritten notes by the president to information about national intelligence sources.
    It also showed efforts by Trump representatives to claim he had the authority to declassify documents.
    Of the 32-page document, unsealed on Friday, 23 of its pages were largely blacked out, with the text on 11 pages of them redacted entirely.
    The release also contained a letter from Trump's defense attorney Evan Corcoran, who wrote to the department on May 25 to complain about the Justice Department's investigation.
    "Any attempt to impose criminal liability on a President or former President that involves his actions with respect to documents marked classified would implicate grave constitutional separation-of-powers issues," he wrote.
    Beyond that, the primary criminal statute that governs the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material does not apply to the President," he added.
    An Aug. 8 search at Mar-a-Lago marked a significant escalation in one of the many federal and state investigations Trump is facing from his time in office and in private business. The Republican former president has suggested he might run for the White House again.
    The FBI action was part of a federal probe into whether Trump illegally removed documents when he left office in January 2021 after losing the presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden, and whether he tried to obstruct the government's investigation.
    According to the document released on Friday, an unidentified FBI agent said that the U.S. National Archives had discovered scores of "documents bearing classification markings" containing "national defense information" when it recovered 15 boxes from Mar-a-Lago in January.
    The FBI agent said a preliminary review of the records the Archives received in the 15 boxes, which was conducted between May 16-18, found 184 "unique documents" labeled as classified. Of those, 67 were marked "confidential" while 92 were marked as "secret" and 25 were marked as "top secret."
    Other defense-related records, meanwhile, contained references to things such as confidential human sources that help the U.S. with its intelligence-gathering.
    (Production: Kristin Neubauer)
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