Search at Donald Trump’s home | The warrant made public, documents classified as top-secret were seized

(Washington) US federal police seized documents marked “top secret” during their search of the home of former President Donald Trump, in possible violation of a national security law, according to court documents released Friday.

FBI investigators suspect the Republican of having violated an American law on espionage which very strictly regulates the possession of confidential documents linked to national security, some of which must only be consulted or seen in secure buildings.

Several court documents were released Friday by a federal judge in Florida: the warrant authorizing the search that took place last Monday and a long inventory of documents seized by FBI agents.

In this list is mentioned a set of documents classified as “top secret” or “secret” or “confidential”, as well as a document “1A Info re: President of France”, without further details.

About thirty boxes were seized, as well as binders with photos and a handwritten note, according to this inventory.

According to experts, invoking this law does not mean that the former president risks being accused of espionage. “The Espionage Act includes a bunch of crimes that have nothing to do with espionage,” espy attorney Bradley Moss said on Twitter.

58 rooms

The operation, carried out in the luxurious residence of Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago in Florida – 58 rooms and 33 bathrooms according to the search warrant – had provoked the fury of his supporters evoking a “political persecution”, as well than many Republican tenors.

On Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland had, in an exceptional speech, asked that a judge make public this warrant authorizing the search so that his reasons are known to all.

This request – very unusual – had been favorably received by Donald Trump in a tweet on Thursday evening.

And on Friday, shortly before the publication of the documents, the ex-president assured, in a press release, that the documents recovered by the FBI had all been “declassified”.

“They didn’t need to grab anything,” he said. “They could have gotten them whenever they wanted without playing politics or robbing Mar-a-Lago,” he added.

During his brief televised address, Merrick Garland assured that he “personally approved” this search and said that such a decision was never “taken lightly”.

He added that the case was of “important public interest”, three months before the mid-term legislative elections.

US presidents are required by law to hand over all of their emails, letters and other working documents to the US National Archives.

However, Donald Trump had taken, when he left the White House in January 2021, fifteen boxes of documents, which agents from the Archives had to recover in January, already at Mar-a-Lago.

Monday’s search was the first ever to target a former US president.

Outraged, Donald Trump told Truth Social on Monday that his lawyers were cooperating “fully” with the authorities when “suddenly and without warning, Mar-a-Lago was raided, at 6:30 a.m., by a VERY large number of officers”.

He complained in particular about the fact that FBI agents “searched the closets of first lady” Melania Trump.

On Wednesday, he even suggested that the federal police may have “planted” false evidence against him during this operation.

Block

Republican sympathizers, known for their support for law enforcement, blasted the FBI’s intervention, so much so that an association of agents denounced calls “unacceptable […] violence against the police”.

The attorney general denounced “unfounded attacks” against his department and federal police officers.

On Thursday, a gunman who tried to enter FBI offices in Ohio (northern United States) was killed by law enforcement after a long confrontation.

After the search, the Republican tenors had united with their former president, who retains a strong hold on the conservative party and plans to be a presidential candidate again in 2024.

The ex-real estate magnate, at the heart of the judicial news in the United States, was also subjected on Wednesday to a hearing under oath before the Attorney General of New York, who is investigating in civil on suspicion of fraud. fiscal financial affairs within the Trump Organization family group.

But he refused to answer questions.