Yahoo Autos Mar-a-Lago search: Agents took top secret documents, but what those documents contained remains unknown
A federal judge on Friday unsealed a warrant authorizing the search of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate when the Justice Department, after conferring with Trump's attorneys, formally asserted the former president did not object to making the search warrant public.
The warrant showed the former president is under investigation for possibly breaking three federal laws: removal or destruction of records, obstructing an investigation, and violating the Espionage Act.
Federal agents retrieved boxes that included 11 sets of classified documents from Trump's Florida home, according to a property receipt released with the warrant. Some of the items had vague descriptors like binders of photos, a handwritten note, information about the “President of France” and the executive grant of clemency for Trump ally Roger Stone, while about half of the documents were classified.
Friday's news: DOJ search warrant shows Trump being probed in connection with espionage statutes
Latest developments:
►The warrant: The warrant signed by a federal magistrate that authorized FBI agents to search Mar-a-Lago seeks documents, records, contraband, fruits of crime or other items illegally possessed in violation of gathering, transmitting or losing national defense information.
►The investigation: Investigators don't necessarily believe Trump is a spy. It is more likely the probe is focused on the careless handling of classified information, making it easier to be accessed by spies, attorneys said.
►The inventory: About half of the documents taken from Mar-a-Lago had confidential, secret or top-secret classifications.
Lawmakers ask intel chief for review of 'damage' to national security
Democratic chairs of two House committees asked Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines to review if former President Donald Trump's actions in storing documents at his residence damaged national security.
The lawmakers said if media reports were true that Trump had documents containing information about nuclear weapons and other highly classified topics, "it is hard to overstate the national security danger that could emanate from the reckless decision to remove and retain this material," wrote House Oversight Chair Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and House Intelligence Chair Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. in a letter to Haines on Saturday.
Maloney and Schiff asked Haines to order a damage assessment from intelligence officials as soon as possible. "This issue demands a full review, in addition to the ongoing law enforcement inquiry," they said.
- Jeanine Santucci
Trump lawyer told DOJ classified material had been returned: report
A lawyer for former President Donald Trump signed a statement in June that said all documents marked as classified and boxed up in storage in Mar-a-Lago had been given back – which was disproven after federal agents searched the Florida property Monday, the New York Times reported.
Citing anonymous sources, the Times reported that the written declaration was made after a June 3 Mar-a-Lago visit by Jay I. Bratt, the top counterintelligence official in the Justice Department’s national security division.
The signed declaration’s existence, and its implication that Trump or his team wasn’t entirely forthcoming with federal investigators, could help explain why the former president is being investigated for possible violation of a criminal statute related to obstruction, the Times reported.
-- Ella Lee
Trump calls DOJ probe a ‘hoax,’ but experts have a grimmer assessment
Former President Donald Trump is downplaying what the FBI found in its search Monday of his South Florida residence and members-only club, decrying as “a hoax” media reports that said authorities were looking for documents concerning nuclear weapons and other top-secret topics.
But if the FBI, the Justice Department and an independent federal judge are to be believed, Trump could be in some very serious legal trouble, including what they allege are potential violations of the U.S. Espionage Act.
"The fact that the search was predicated on evidence of crimes committed under the Espionage Act is of enormous importance," said Ryan Goodman, a national security law expert and former special counsel to the Department of Defense.
"It suggests the Justice Department was given no choice but to act," he added.
-- Josh Meyer
Read more here: Trump calls DOJ probe a "hoax." Experts, citing the Espionage Act, have a grimmer assessment
