Donald Trump has criticized the search of his property as politically motivated. The list of confiscated items now shows that the FBI found top secret documents there.
The FBI seized several top-secret documents during a search of former US President Donald Trump’s Florida home. This emerges from the receipt for the confiscated items, which a court in the US state of Florida published together with the search warrant at the request of US Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Trump may have broken several laws, including the US Espionage Act. The ex-president had previously claimed on the social network Truth Social, which he co-founded, that all documents had been released, meaning that the secrecy had been lifted.
The search warrant lists three criminal offenses as possible grounds for possible seizures: collecting, transmitting or losing defense information, removing or destroying official documents, and destroying or altering documents to impede investigations. The first point can be punished with up to ten years imprisonment, the second up to three years and the third up to 20 years imprisonment.
Incumbent presidents do have far-reaching powers to release information and break secrecy. But in this case it is not as simple as Trump makes it out to be. There is a formal procedure for releasing documents. Additional approvals are required for some releases. In addition, it does not necessarily matter whether the documents were declassified, since even keeping documents without authorization in the context of national defense can constitute a crime.
Security level “Top Secret/SCI”
According to the FBI list, agents last Monday found a set of Top Secret/SCI documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, which are top secret and can only be viewed at special government facilities. Four of the confiscated sets of documents were classified as “Top Secret”, three more as “Secret” and the remaining three as “Confidential”. The Washington Post reported that the FBI was also looking for classified documents about nuclear weapons. Trump denied this and described the report on Friday as a “hoax”.
According to the list, the agents also confiscated numerous boxes, a pardon for Trump confidante Roger Stone, unspecified information about the “President of France” and two photo albums. The papers that have now been published say nothing about the content of the documents. It remains unclear why Trump took the documents with him at all. It’s just his habit of collecting souvenirs and memorabilia, the New York Times quoted people close to Trump as saying – without naming names.
Incorrect information?
According to a report, Trump’s team made false statements about the whereabouts of secret documents in his possession. At least one of the Republican’s attorneys is said to have signed a statement in June stating that the material marked as secret had been returned in its entirety to the government, the New York Times reported on Saturday, citing four unnamed people. This document is said to have been handed over to the Ministry of Justice.
Trump spoke again on Truth Social on Saturday. There the 76-year-old wrote that he had the truth on his side – and if you had the truth on your side, you would ultimately be victorious. The New York Times quoted a Trump spokesman as saying: “As with every Democrat-sponsored witch hunt, this unprecedented and unnecessary crackdown is being carried out by a media outlet willing to work with suggestive leaks, anonymous sources and no hard facts .
Trump makes allegations against Biden
Attorney General Garland stressed on Thursday that the presumption of innocence applies. At the same time, he underlined that a federal court had authorized the search “after the necessary determination of sufficient suspicion”. “I personally endorsed the decision to seek a search warrant.” Trump had sharply criticized the operation and accused the government of his successor, Joe Biden, of abusing the FBI for political purposes.
According to the White House, Biden did not know in advance about the search of the Trump property. The process is considered unprecedented in US history. Trump was not on site during the search, but had made the search public himself.
At the beginning of the year it became known that the National Archives suspected several boxes with confidential material in Mar-a-Lago. Trump finally handed over several documents to the agency in January. After that, according to US media reports, there was a further exchange between investigators and Trump’s lawyers. Officials suspected that Trump or his team were continuing to withhold important documents, the Washington Post wrote, citing anonymous sources.
incitement to violence
Meanwhile, more details are emerging about the man who tried to break into an FBI field office in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Thursday. The attacker was shot dead by police after a chase. The Washington Post reported that an account under the man’s name on Truth Social had reacted aggressively to the search of Trump’s home and called for violence. He is also said to have spread Trump’s lies about voter fraud. According to the newspaper, the account has since been deleted.
Source: Stern
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