Former US President Donald Trump is under federal investigation for removal or destruction of records, obstruction of an investigation, and violating the Espionage Act, according to documents viewed by Politico.
The US news agency reported a receipt accompanying the search warrant used to raid the former president's Mar-a-Lago estate showed that Trump possessed documents marked with "TS/SCI," which indicate one of the highest levels of government classification; an item labelled "executive grant of clemency re: Roger Jason Stone," a reference to one of Trump's closest confidants who received a pardon in late 2020; and another item labelled "Info re: President of France".
The receipt shows FBI agents took 11 sets of classified records from the estate. The seized records include some that were marked classified as top secret and also "sensitive compartmented information," a special category meant to protect the nation's most important secrets and those that if revealed publicly would harm US interests. The court records did not provide specific details about the documents or what information they might contain.
The search warrant, which was made public on Friday (local time), comes after US Attorney General Merrick Garland declared there was "substantial public interest in this matter," and Trump backed the warrant's "immediate" release.
The decision to unseal the records was made by US Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, the same judge who signed off on the search warrant. The Justice Department told the judge Friday afternoon that Trump's lawyers did not object to the proposal to make it public.
In messages posted on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote, "Not only will I not oppose the release of documents ... I am going a step further by ENCOURAGING the immediate release of those documents."
Trump himself was given at least some of the records the government was seeking to unseal, but he and his lawyers declined to make them public.
In a statement Friday, Trump claimed that the documents seized by agents at his Florida club were "all declassified," and argued that he would have turned over the documents to the Justice Department if asked.
While incumbent presidents have the power to declassify information, that authority lapses as soon as they leave office and it was not clear if the documents seized by federal agents under the warrant have ever been declassified.
Trump also retained the documents despite multiple requests from agencies, including the National Archives, to turn over presidential records in accordance with federal law.
The Justice Department's request is striking because such documents traditionally remain sealed during a pending investigation. But the department appeared to recognise that its silence since the search had created a vacuum for bitter verbal attacks by Trump and his allies, and that the public was entitled to the FBI's side about what prompted Monday's action at the former president's home.
"The public's clear and powerful interest in understanding what occurred under these circumstances weighs heavily in favour of unsealing," said a motion filed in federal court in Florida on Thursday.
The Mar-a-Lago search warrant served Monday was part of an ongoing Justice Department investigation into the discovery of classified White House records recovered from Trump's home in Palm Beach, Florida, earlier this year. The National Archives had asked the department to investigate after saying 15 boxes of records it retrieved from the estate included classified records. Multiple federal laws govern the handling of classified information.
The attorney general also condemned verbal attacks on FBI and Justice Department personnel over the search. Some Republican allies of Trump have called for the FBI to be defunded. Large numbers of Trump supporters have called for the warrant to be released hoping they it will show that Trump was unfairly targeted.
"I will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked," Garland said of federal law enforcement agents, calling them "dedicated, patriotic public servants".
- additional reporting: AP