It is the presence of extremely confidential documents in boxes recovered from Donald Trump which provoked the search of the FBI, the American federal police, in the Florida residence of the ex-president, reveals a court document published on Friday.
Written before the search of August 8 in order to obtain authorization, this procedural document explains the reasons why the investigators considered this absolutely unprecedented operation necessary and henceforth at the origin of a political storm.
The US Department of Justice, forced into this disclosure by a judge, has also redacted a very large part in order to protect the investigation.
In February, Donald Trump’s teams handed over 15 boxes of documents he had taken when he left the White House to the national archives agency, responsible for recording presidential activities for history.
It was after examining these boxes that the FBI, convinced that the former president kept other classified documents in Florida, decided to search him, seizing on this occasion around thirty other boxes of documents.
The procedural document published on Friday draws up, between two passages crossed out in black, a partial inventory of the files which alarmed the federal police in February: 184 classified documents, including 25 bearing the mention ” top secret », the highest degree of confidentiality.
Particularly striking: some of these documents carried the sign “HCS”, which in the language of the American intelligence community designates information provided by “human sources”, informants and other undercover agents.
Handwritten notes and espionage law
Several documents bore “what appeared to be handwritten notes” from Donald Trump, according to the federal police, which reveals that the files found were in some cases “mixed with other files”.
These very sensitive archives had “not been managed appropriately or stored in an appropriate place”, concluded the Department of Justice in a letter to Donald Trump’s lawyers made public on Friday.
Agents searched Mar-a-Lago’s home — 58 bedrooms and 33 bathrooms — on Aug. 8, angering the former president and his supporters.
Faced with criticism, the Secretary of Justice assured that he had “personally approved” the search. A federal judge then ordered US authorities to publish the 38-page document made public on Friday, while granting the request to redact entire passages in order to protect the investigations.
Reacting on Friday, Donald Trump again denounced on his Truth Social network a “witch hunt”, as well as a “subterfuge”. “We live in a country without faith or law”, he was indignant shortly before.
Investigators suspect the Republican of having violated an American law on espionage which very strictly regulates the possession of confidential documents. Donald Trump assured that these documents had been declassified.
Justice must act, says Biden
“ Come on ! Reacted a sarcastic Joe Biden on Friday when asked about this argument from his predecessor. “Let the Justice Department handle this,” the Democratic president said, declining to comment further on the document revealed Friday.
On leaving for his family residence in Delaware, Joe Biden indicated that he was carrying classified documents. But he stressed that he had “a completely secure space” at home and detailed the procedure. The document “is locked. […] I have someone with me, a soldier. I read it, lock it again, and give it to the soldier. »
Donald Trump is also the target of investigations into his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and his role in the assault by his supporters on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The Republican, who flirts with the idea of a candidacy for the presidential election of 2024, is not yet prosecuted in any case.