Affidavit

Federal investigators obtained a search warrant for former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate earlier this month by pointing to a raft of highly ...

The Justice Department argued against making even a redacted version of the affidavit public, warning that redactions needed to protect the integrity of the investigation and to prevent harm to individuals would be so extensive as to render the document meaningless. Both Reinhart and the Justice Department have noted an uptick in violent threats against those connected to the Trump probe as they laid out their rationale for redactions. In an order issued a short time later, the judge said that prosecutors had shown “good cause” to redact elements of the affidavit that would reveal “the identities of witnesses, law enforcement agents, and uncharged parties,” as well as “the investigation’s strategy, direction, scope, sources, and methods” and “grand jury information.” Ultimately the department resorted to getting a search warrant in order to try and obtain the materials it believed remained at Mar-a-Lago. “As I previously indicated to you, Mar-a-Lago does not include a secure location authorized for the storage of classified information,” DOJ wrote in a letter to Corcoran at the time. When prosecutors sought the search warrant for Mar-a-Lago, they included Corcoran’s letter in their submission to Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart. Notably, the letter came before a June 3 meeting between Trump, his attorneys and DOJ officials at Mar-a-Lago, where the department’s counterintelligence chief Jay Bratt and FBI agents viewed parts of the premises. Those arguments came in the form of a three-page, May 25 letter from Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran. The Department of Justice (DOJ), as part of the Executive Branch, is under the control of a President from the opposite party. Trump is a leader of the Republican Party. Records the FBI obtained from Trump’s Florida home in advance of the Aug. According to the affidavit, NARA officials found some of those “highly classified records were unfoldered, intermixed with other records, and otherwise unproperly [sic] identified.”

The affidavit, which contains many redactions, details the "probable cause" investigators laid out to obtain the warrant for former President Trump's ...

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The affidavit says federal agents believed there was probable cause more documents containing classified information remain at Mar-a-Lago.

The search warrant cited two other laws that address concealment, removal, or mutilation generally; and destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations and bankruptcy. 11 to say the Department of Justice would ask a judge to unseal the search warrant and the property receipt, which briefly explains what the FBI confiscated during their search. Please see our republishing guidelines for use of photos and graphics. Trump and his legal team, who had copies of both documents on Aug. The three-page property receipt, signed by Trump attorney Christina Bobb on Aug. 8 by releasing a statement that evening. “Although the Presidential Records Act (PRA) generally restricts access to Presidential records in NARA’s custody for several years after the conclusion of a President’s tenure in office,” Wall wrote that she wouldn’t grant the Trump legal team’s request for a further delay before the FBI and others in the Intelligence Community” could begin reviewing the documents to determine if there was a risk to national security. The search warrant showed the FBI believed the documents Trump had a Mar-a-Lago potentially violated a section of the Espionage Act that governs gathering, transmitting or losing defense information. The request to search the property earlier this month stemmed from a batch of documents the National Archives received in January from Trump that included more than 700 pages with classified markings. Trump first announced the FBI had received a search warrant to search Mar-a-Lago on Aug. WASHINGTON — A federal court released a partially redacted affidavit Friday detailing some of the reasons the Federal Bureau of Investigation provided to a judge in order to get a search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s private residence in Mar-a-Lago. A portion of the partially redacted affidavit Friday detailing some of the reasons the FBI provided to a judge overseeing the case of the FBI’s removal of documents from former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence.

The newly released affidavit sheds light on the classified documents at the center of Trump's growing legal problems.

[search warrant](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/8/12/23303363/trump-fbi-raid-warrant-receipt-mar-a-lago) released earlier this month revealed that the FBI searched Trump’s home because of potential violations of three federal laws, including the Espionage Act, the willful destruction or concealment of federal records, and obstructing an investigation. [Read the affidavit here](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23973296/trump_mar_a_lago_raid_affidavit.pdf) or below: [Presidential documents](https://www.npr.org/2022/08/13/1117297065/trump-documents-history-national-archives-law-watergate), no matter how small or obscure, are required by federal law to be turned over to the National Archives when a president leaves office. None of the federal laws cited by investigators require documents to be classified. During that search, the bureau found a cache of classified and sensitive documents. There is also probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found at the PREMISES.” This kind of intelligence is obviously extremely closely guarded and its exposure could put lives or sources at risk. [the New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/23/us/politics/trump-classified-documents-fbi-letter.html), Trump “took more than 700 pages of classified documents, including some related to the nation’s most covert intelligence operations, to his private club and residence in Florida when he left the White House in January 2021.” The documents authorities searched for in Trump’s home included classified [nuclear secrets](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/11/garland-trump-mar-a-lago/) and information that is “among the most sensitive secrets we hold,” the [Washington Post reported](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/23/trump-records-mar-a-lago-fbi/). [irrelevant](https://twitter.com/BarbMcQuade/status/1558425307375452160) to [Trump’s potential legal troubles](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23306941/donald-trump-crimes-criminal-investigation-mar-a-lago-fbi-january-6-election-georgia-new-york). As expected, the document is heavily redacted. [months of](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/23/trump-records-mar-a-lago-fbi/) back-and-forth between federal investigators and Trump and his legal team, which spurred the FBI to ask a judge for permission to conduct its August [search of Mar-a-Lago](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/8/9/23297734/donald-trump-mar-a-lago-fbi-raid). That is, information that could reveal the actual identities of intelligence sources or closely guarded intel on US adversaries allies. [Politico’s Andrew Desiderio](https://twitter.com/AndrewDesiderio/status/1563204613804724225)noted on Twitter that some of the documents allegedly contained human intelligence source information and foreign intelligence intercepts.

An aerial view shows President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estatein Palm Beach, Fla., Aug. 10, 2022. Steve Helber/AP.

"If the Privilege Review Team determines the documents or data are not potentially attorney-client privileged, they will be provided to the law-enforcement personnel assigned to the investigation," the affidavit says. First, the National Archives in 2021 learned that there were a significant number of missing presidential records from the Trump administration. There is no mention in this section of DOJ instructing the president's team to simply add a lock to the room, though that is what Trump's legal team has claimed repeatedly -- this is a direct request from DOJ that the documents not be moved from the room. As a result of negotiations with President Trump, 15 boxes were sent from Mar-a-Lago to the national archives in January of this year," ABC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas reported. "By removing these documents from the White House and storing them in Mar a Lago he placed the country at great risk." Similarly, based upon this investigation, I do not believe that any spaces within the PREMISES have been authorized for the storage of classified information at least since the end of FPOTUS 's Presidential Administration on January 20, 2021." National Archives officials were so concerned that they turned over these boxes to the FBI this past May. "There is no legitimate reason for a former president to have intelligence of this nature unsecured in his personal residence," said John Cohen, an ABC News contributor and the former acting undersecretary for intelligence and counterterrorism coordinator at the U.S. "Further," the affidavit continues, "the FBI agents observed markings reflecting the following compartments/dissemination controls: HCS, FISA, ORCON, NOFORN, and SI. "The main thing that the affidavit does is walk us through how this investigation unfolded. Later in the affidavit, DOJ details a letter from one off its lawyers to Corcoran that "reiterated" Mar-a-Lago was not authorized to store classified information and requested the room docs were stored in to be further secured and the docs "be preserved in that room in their current condition until further notice." Several of the documents also contained what appears to be FPOTUS 's handwritten notes."

A document outlying the case for a search warrant of former President Donald J. Trump's Mar-a-Lago property included references to possible obstruction.

The redacted affidavit did not offer details of what the possible obstruction might be. “There is also probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found at the premises.” A statute related to obstruction was among those used to underpin the case for a warrant.

Former President Donald Trump jeopardized some of the nation's most classified defense and intelligence material -- from intercepted foreign communications ...

[document](https://assets.bwbx.io/documents/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/r5KSjVSgocEE/v0), which is 38 pages including attachments, was filed Friday in federal court in West Palm Beach, Florida, after a magistrate judge ruled the public should be allowed to see at least parts of it due to the [“historical interest”](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-22/trump-judge-affirms-doj-hasn-t-made-case-to-seal-affidavit) in the search for classified documents at Trump’s home. Former President Donald Trump jeopardized some of the nation’s most classified defense and intelligence material -- from intercepted foreign communications to intelligence gathered by spies -- by stashing it improperly at his Mar-a-Lago estate, according to an unsealed FBI affidavit.

The Justice Department released a redacted version of the Mar-a-Lago search warrant on Friday.

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This document spells out exactly what FBI agents think was hidden at Donald Trump's residence and what crimes may have been committed.

Patel, a lawyer who held numerous national security positions in the Trump administration, has [emerged as a central figure](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/19/trump-kash-patel-declassification-mar-a-lago-search/) in this saga, given these kinds of comments and Trump having appointed him, in the midst of all of this, as one of his two representatives to the National Archives. But this paragraph suggests that the investigation includes detailed monitoring of Mar-a-Lago to find out how many boxes of official material were still there, and where they were being stored. § 1924(a)](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1924) — which he calls “the primary criminal statute that governs the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material” and argues a president isn’t subject to it. But broaching this subject strongly implies the government has cast doubt on Patel’s claim — the document also goes on to refer to the documents as “classified” — and/or notes, as it does elsewhere, that the documents’ classification status doesn’t bear on the specific crimes involved. [put an extra lock on the storage room](https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/08/10/trump-doj-fbi-previously-asked-for-extra-lock-on-document-storage-room-they-broke-during-raid/) — something they have said they complied with and demonstrated their good-faith cooperation, rendering the search overzealous. Some [wagered section (d) might be what the government was focused on](https://www.lawfareblog.com/donald-trump-and-espionage-act) — the prohibition on giving sensitive national security information “to any person not entitled to receive it” or keeping such information and failing “to deliver it on demand to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it.” But this is about section (e). [https://www.breitbart.comvoliticsi2022i05/05/documents-mar-a-lago-marked-classified-wereah-eadv-declassifi.ed-kash-patel-savs/](https://www.breitbart.comvoliticsi2022i05/05/documents-mar-a-lago-marked-classified-wereah-eadv-declassifi.ed-kash-patel-savs/?itid=lk_inline_enhanced-template), which states that Kash Patel, who is described as a former top FPOTUS administration official, characterized as ''misleading” reports in other news organizations that NARA had found classified materials among records that FPOTUS provided to NARA from Mar-a-Lago. Section (e) is similar, but it focuses on someone who is in “unauthorized possession” of such information — unlike (d) — and requires the person to have “reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation.” Another key difference: section (d) doesn’t require the officer or employee requesting the information to “demand” the information. But when National Archives retrieved 15 boxes of official material in January from Mar-a-Lago, it found “a lot of classified records,” according to the affidavit, and flagged the FBI. The affidavit goes on to allege that some of those documents potentially contained secrets about confidential informants (HCS), information gathered secretly by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and documents that are not allowed to be shared with other people without high-level approval (ORCON) or especially foreign governments (NOFRON). This is the very first line in the 38-page affidavit that the FBI put together to apply for that search warrant. [ including part of the Espionage Act.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/07/what-is-presidential-records-act-how-did-trump-violate-it/) That’s based on the search warrant that the Justice Department released earlier this month, under public pressure, after the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago.

The release of a redacted affidavit that the Justice Department used to obtain a search warrant for former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home shed new ...

But that lawsuit lacked several of the legal elements to be expected of such a request. Instead, the prosecutors were told to prepare a version for the public with limited redactions which contained a surprisingly robust amount of information. The affidavit cited, and included as an attachment, a letter Trump attorney Evan Corcoran sent the Justice Department in May -- after the existence of the investigation surfaced publicly -- asserting that Trump had such authority. In the court proceedings around whether the affidavit should be released, the Justice Department has kept limited the number of its officials known to be involved. The affiant said that they were trained in "counterintelligence and espionage investigations" at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. There's no evidence, however, that those materials were what the FBI was looking for when it searched Mar-a-Lago earlier this month. What comes next in the Justice Department's investigation is not clear. "HCS" indicates that the material is about human sources, or spies, that often work with the CIA. But the third potential crime -- obstruction -- that was cited by the warrant materials does not have a corresponding unredacted subhead in the affidavit. This alphabet soup is probably confusing to most Americans, but national security experts have said it reveals the horrifying scope of this security breach. "There is also probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found at (Mar-a-Lago.)" It started after a criminal referral from the National Archives, which was sent to the Justice Department on February 9.

Within the 15 boxes of documents the National Archives received earlier this year, the federal agents found 184 documents with classified markings, including 67 ...

The search warrant cited two other laws that address concealment, removal, or mutilation generally; and destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations and bankruptcy. 11 to say the Department of Justice would ask a judge to unseal the search warrant and the property receipt, which briefly explains what the FBI confiscated during their search. Several news organizations filed legal briefs for it to be released, saying there was a significant public interest in the case. “As I previously indicated to you, Mar-a-Lago does not include a secure location authorized for the storage of classified information,” the DOJ lawyer wrote, according to the affidavit. Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Trump and his legal team, who had copies of both documents on Aug. The three-page property receipt, signed by Trump attorney Christina Bobb on Aug. Federal Magistrate Judge Bruce E. In it, Corcoran wrote that since Trump was “a leader of the Republican Party” and that since the executive branch of government is controlled by President Joe Biden, a Democrat, that “adherence to the rules and long-standing policies is essential.” entities” marked others. The DOJ lawyer asked Trump’s legal team to secure the room at Mar-a-Lago where the documents had been stored and that all the documents be “preserved in that room in their current condition until further notice.” The unsealed affidavit stated that, of the documents Trump returned to the National Archives after about a year out of office, “of most significant concern was that highly classified records were unfoldered, intermixed with other records, and otherwise unproperly [sic] identified.”

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann to discuss findings from the Justice Department's release of the Mar-a-Lago ...

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The court papers reveal more hints about the closely guarded US secrets allegedly kept at Mar-a-Lago.

And Mr Trump's public-relations campaign against the justice department and the investigation goes on. Investigators also hinted about the possibility of reaching out to new witnesses. In a separate filing, however, the justice department explained the reasoning behind its rescissions. About half of the 38-page document was redacted by the government, including entire pages in some cases. The curtain of secrecy has been pulled back ever so slightly on the investigation into Donald Trump's handling of classified documents and presidential records at Mar-a-Lago. And not the juiciest parts.

Unredacted portions of the affidavit point to a crime that has been overshadowed amid disputes over classified information.

“That is what we don’t know yet because of the affidavit redactions — whether the Department of Justice has proof that he did know that they were still concealing documents on an ongoing basis.” Sullivan noted that most of the interactions between the government and Mr. [more than 700 pages of classified documents](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/23/us/politics/trump-classified-documents-fbi-letter.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-trump-raid&variant=show®ion=MAIN_CONTENT_1&block=storyline_top_links_recirc), according to a [letter](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/08/23/us/politics/national-archives-letter-trump-fbi.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-trump-raid&variant=show®ion=MAIN_CONTENT_1&block=storyline_top_links_recirc)from the National Archives. The search was successful in finding and retrieving numerous remaining government documents, some of which were marked as highly classified, according to the F.B.I.’s inventory. In a separate filing, the department urged a judge not to disclose anything that might reveal their identities, lest they be harassed and intimidated. Also unsealed with the affidavit on Friday was an angry letter to the Justice Department from one of Mr. The substance of his letter was entirely focused on the question of classified information and did not address obstruction. Trump’s designated representatives to the agency and asked for the return of about two dozen boxes of missing documents. After discovering that haphazardly mixed in were 184 documents marked as classified — including what the affidavit described as extremely restricted ones containing information that could reveal confidential human intelligence sources and surveillance technology abilities — the agency made a criminal referral to the Justice Department on Feb. Trump had sought to impede his work, as it was about scrutinizing Russia’s efforts to manipulate the 2016 election and the nature of myriad Russian links to people associated with Mr. To convict someone of obstruction, prosecutors need to prove two things: that a defendant knowingly concealed or destroyed documents, and that he did so to impede the official work of any federal agency or department. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound, indicating that prosecutors had evidence suggesting efforts to impede the recovery of government documents.

More than two weeks have passed since the FBI searched former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate and removed an array of classified documents and ...

The affidavit acknowledges that the FBI received this letter in May 2022 and was asked to provide it to any judges or grand juries it happened to engage on the matter—a request the FBI appears to have honored by attaching it to the affidavit. The sheer volume of redacted material, in fact, attests to the quantity of evidence that lies behind the warrant. This, in turn, suggests that some of the redacted material most likely provides evidence or arguments as to why this is not the case or does not undermine the case for probable cause. Progress is likely to be especially slow in a case as high-profile and politically charged as this one, taking place during a time as sensitive as the months before a national election. And this disappointment is likely to grow in the coming months, as the stream of information to which observers have become accustomed will likely slow to a trickle. (The affidavit also has two unredacted attachments describing the premises to be searched and evidence being searched for, both of which were previously disclosed as part of the search warrant.) [memorandum of law](https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22267214/maralago_noticeoffiling.pdf) that the Justice Department filed with the court in order to justify its redactions to the affidavit. Upon inspection, the NARA found that these materials included “‘a lot of classified records[,]’” some of which “‘were unfolded, intermixed with other records, and otherwise unproperly [sic] identified.’” This is what ultimately led the NARA to make a referral to the FBI in February 2022, initiating the FBI’s investigation. Their inclusion here serves as a bit of foreshadowing, as the affidavit later suggests that each is likely to be among the classified records the affiant believes are at Mar-a-Lago. Or it may simply indicate that the FBI was not confident enough to include them in its initial application for a search warrant—particularly as such information may be separately classified as well. The memorandum also argues that certain redactions are necessary to protect the privacy and “reputational interests” of the individuals who are being investigated. For his part, Trump has [publicly said](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/16/trump-mar-a-lago-affidavit/) he wants the document released but has thus far refused to file anything in support of actually making this happen.