NewsPoliticsTop StoryUS

Trump search: What maybe next inquiry as legal peril

Trump search: What may come next in inquiry with legal peril

Trump search: What maybe next inquiry as legal peril

Newslooks- WASHINGTON (AP)

A newly released FBI document helps flesh out the contours of an investigation into classified material at former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate. But plenty of questions remain, especially because half the affidavit, which spelled out the FBI’s rationale for searching the property, was blacked out.

That document, which the FBI submitted so it could get a warrant to search Trump’s winter home, provides new details about the volume and top secret nature of what was retrieved from Mar-a-Lago in January. It shows how Justice Department officials had raised concerns months before the search that closely held government secrets were being illegally stored and before they returned in August with a court-approved warrant and located even more classified records at the property.

FILE – This is an aerial view of President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, Aug. 10, 2022, in Palm Beach, Fla. The Justice Department on Friday, Aug. 26, released a partially blacked-out document explaining the justification for an FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate earlier this month, when agents removed top secret government records and other classified documents. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)

It all raises questions whether a crime was committed and, if so, by whom. Answers may not come quickly.

A department official this month described the investigation as in its early stages, suggesting more work is ahead as investigators review the documents they removed and continue interviewing witnesses. At a minimum, the investigation presents a political distraction for Trump as he lays the groundwork for a potential presidential run.

Then there’s the obvious legal peril.

FILE – Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally Friday, Aug. 5, 2022, in Waukesha, Wis. Fourteen of the 15 boxes recovered from former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate earlier this year contained documents with classification markings, according to an FBI affidavit released Friday, Aug. 26, explaining the justification for the search of the property this month. (AP Photo/Morry Gash, File)

A look at what’s next:

WHAT IS THE FBI INVESTIGATING?

None of the government’s legal filings released so far singles out Trump — or anyone else — as a potential target of the investigation. But the warrant and accompanying affidavit make clear the investigation is active and criminal in nature.

FILE – Former President Donald Trump speaks at an America First Policy Institute agenda summit at the Marriott Marquis in Washington, July 26, 2022. A newly released FBI document helps flesh out the contours of an investigation into classified documents at Trump’s Florida estate. But plenty of questions remain, especially since half the document was blacked out. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

The department is investigating potential violations of multiple laws, including an Espionage Act statute that governs gathering, transmitting or losing national defense information. The other laws deal with the mutilation and removal of records as well as well as the destruction, alteration or falsification of records in federal investigations.

The inquiry began quietly with a referral from the National Archives and Records Administration, which retrieved 15 boxes of records from Mar-a-Lago in January — 14 of which were found to contain classified information. All told, the FBI affidavit said, officials found 184 documents bearing classification markings, including some suggesting they contained information from highly sensitive human sources. Several had what appeared to be Trump’s handwritten notes, the affidavit says.

A letter from M. Evan Corcoran, one of former President Donald Trump’s attorneys, that was in the affidavit by the FBI in support of obtaining a search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate is photographed Friday, Aug. 26, 2022. U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart ordered the Justice Department to make public a redacted version of the affidavit it relied on when federal agents searched Trump’s estate to look for classified documents. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)

The FBI has spent months investigating how the documents made their way from the White House to Mar-a-Lago, whether any other classified records might exist at the property. The bureau also has tried to identify the person or people “who may have removed or retained classified information without authorization and/or in an unauthorized space,” the affidavit states.

So far the FBI has interviewed a “significant number of civilian witnesses,” according to a Justice Department brief unsealed Friday, and is seeking “further information” from them. The FBI has not identified all “potential criminal confederates nor located all evidence related to its investigation.”

___

The affidavit by the FBI in support of obtaining a search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate is photographed Friday, Aug. 26, 2022. U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart ordered the Justice Department to make public a redacted version of the affidavit it relied on when federal agents searched Trump’s estate to look for classified documents. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)

WILL ANYONE BE CHARGED?

It’s hard to say at this point. To get a search warrant, federal agents must persuade a judge that probable cause exists to believe there’s evidence of a crime at the location they want to search.

But search warrants aren’t automatic precursors to a criminal prosecution and they certainly don’t signal that charges are imminent.

The laws at issue are felonies that carry prison sentences.

Takeaways from the unsealed Mar-a-Lago search affidavit
The motion to unseal the redacted affidavit and other documents, signed by U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, is photographed Friday, Aug. 26, 2022. Reinhart ordered the Justice Department to make public a redacted version of the affidavit it relied on to obtain the search warrant that led to federal agents searching former President Donald Trump’s Ma-a-Lago estate to look for classified documents. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)

One law, involving the mishandling of national defense information, has been used in recent years in the prosecution of a government contractor who stowed reams of sensitive records at his Maryland home (he was sentenced to nine years in prison) and a National Security Agency employee who transmitted classified information to someone who was not authorized to receive it (the case is pending).

Attorney General Merrick Garland hasn’t revealed his thinking on the matter. Asked last month about Trump in the context of a separate investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, he responded that “no person is above the law.”

___

Pages from the affidavit by the FBI in support of obtaining a search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate are photographed Friday, Aug. 26, 2022. U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart ordered the Justice Department to make public a redacted version of the affidavit it relied on when federal agents searched Trump’s estate to look for classified documents. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)

WHAT HAS TRUMP ARGUED?

Trump, irate over the records investigation, issued a statement Friday saying that he and his team have cooperated with the Justice Department and that his representatives “GAVE THEM MUCH.”

That’s at odds with the portrayal of the Trump team in the affidavit and the fact that the FBI search occurred despite warnings months earlier that the documents were not being properly stored and that there was no safe location for them anywhere in Mar-a-Lago.

Pages from the affidavit by the FBI in support of obtaining a search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate are photographed Friday, Aug. 26, 2022. U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart ordered the Justice Department to make public a redacted version of the affidavit it relied on when federal agents searched Trump’s estate to look for classified documents. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)

A letter made public as part of the affidavit forecasts the arguments the Trump legal team intends to advance as the investigation proceeds. The May 25 letter from lawyer M. Evan Corcoran to Jay Bratt, the head of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence, articulates a robust, expansive view of executive power.

Corcoran asserted that it was a “bedrock principle” that a president has absolute authority to declassify documents — though he doesn’t actually say that Trump did so. He also said the primary law governing the mishandling of classified information doesn’t apply to the president.

Pages from the affidavit by the FBI in support of obtaining a search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate are photographed Friday, Aug. 26, 2022. U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart ordered the Justice Department to make public a redacted version of the affidavit it relied on when federal agents searched Trump’s estate to look for classified documents. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)

The statute that he cited in the letter was not among the ones the affidavit suggests that Justice Department is basing its investigation on. And in a footnote in the affidavit, an FBI agent observed that the law about national defense information does not use the term classified information.

___

Journalists gather outside the Paul S. Rogers Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in downtown West Palm Beach, Fla., to read a heavily blackout document released by The Justice Department Friday, Aug. 26, 2022. The 32-page affidavit, even in its heavily redacted form, offers the most detailed description to date of the government records being stored at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property long after he left the White House and reveals the gravity of the government’s concerns that the documents were there illegally. (AP Photo/Jim Rassol)

WHAT HAS THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION SAID?

The White House has been notably circumspect about the investigation, with officials repeatedly saying they will let the Justice Department do its job.

National security spokesman John Kirby, responding to a question this week about whether the administration would do a damage assessment about the sensitive secrets at Mar-a-Lago, responded that he didn’t want to get ahead of the FBI.

Pages from the affidavit by the FBI in support of obtaining a search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate are photographed Friday, Aug. 26, 2022. U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart ordered the Justice Department to make public a redacted version of the affidavit it relied on when federal agents searched Trump’s estate to look for classified documents. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)

President Joe Biden appeared Friday to mock the idea that Trump could have simply declassified all the documents in his possession, telling reporters, “I just want you to know I’ve declassified everything in the world. I’m president I can do — c’mon!”

He then said he would “let the Justice Department take care of it.”

Read more U.S. news

Previous Article
Clements wins at Daytona, reaches postseason
Next Article
Iraqi PM: Political crisis undermining Security earnings

How useful was this article?

Click on a star to rate it!

Average rating 0 / 5. Vote count: 0

No votes so far! Be the first to rate this article.

Latest News

Menu