Secret files ‘likely concealed’ at Trump mansion to block FBI probe
US authorities have released a photo of documents marked “TOP SECRET” unearthed by the FBI inside Donald Trump’s mansion.
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Top secret documents found at Donald Trump’s Florida home were “likely concealed” to obstruct an FBI probe into the former president’s potential mishandling of classified materials, the Department of Justice said in an explosive new court filing.
The filing released late Tuesday provides the most detailed account yet of the motivation for the raid on Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate – which was triggered by a review of highly classified records that he had previously surrendered to authorities.
A striking photograph included in the filing shows colour-coded documents marked “SECRET” and “TOP SECRET” spread out over a carpet.
Mr Trump hit back over the release of the image in a post on his Truth Social network on Wednesday.
“Terrible the way the FBI, during the Raid of Mar-a-Lago, threw documents haphazardly all over the floor (perhaps pretending it was me that did it!), and then started taking pictures of them for the public to see,” he wrote.
“Thought they wanted them kept Secret? Lucky I Declassified.”
Before the raid, the FBI uncovered “multiple sources of evidence” showing that “classified documents” remained at Mar-a-Lago, the filing says, despite the assertion by Mr Trump’s representatives that all sensitive materials had been handed over.
The filing made clear that prosecutors are seeking to determine whether Mr Trump or anyone in his immediate orbit acted criminally to prevent federal agents from retrieving classified documents.
“The government also developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the Storage Room (at Trump’s estate) and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation,” the filing adds.
When agents conducted their court-ordered search on August 8, they found material so sensitive that “even the FBI counterintelligence personnel and DOJ attorneys conducting the review required additional clearances before they were permitted to review certain documents,” it says.
In total, the filing says, agents recovered more than 100 documents with classification markings, in 13 boxes or containers, during the raid.
TRUMP BRAGS HE HAD ‘INTEL’ ON FRENCH PRESIDENT’S SEX LIFE
It was earlier revealed that Mr Trump alleged to some of his closet confidants that he learned “intelligence” on the “naughty” sex life of Emmanuel Macron, casting new light on the FBI seizure of documents at his Florida mansion.
On the list of items confiscated from Mar-a-Lago, document 1a was marked only as “info re: President of France”.
While it gave no detail on what that information contained, two of Mr Trump’s closest, inner-circles associates told Rolling Stone that the former president bragged about illicit details of Mr Macron’s private life.
The 44-year-old French president has been married to 69-year-old Brigitte since 2007.
He was just 16 years old when he began an affair with his schoolteacher, a married mother of three a quarter-century Mr Macron’s senior.
Mr Trump claimed to his associates, before and after being in the White House, that he learned “dirt” through intelligence briefings he received as president, according to Rolling Stone.
The seizure of “info re: President of France” among documents in Mr Trump’s basement reportedly triggered a freak-out in both Paris and Washington, according to two additional sources quoted by Rolling Stone.
US and French officials were scrambling to learn what information Mr Trump kept on Mr Macron, with a French embassy spokesman adding to the outlet they have not asked the Biden administration for specifics on the documents.
“It is often hard to tell if he’s bullsh*tting or not,” a source told Rolling Stone.
DOJ REVIEWS TRUMP DOCUMENTS
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced in a court filing that they already reviewed documents seized from Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, and that they identified a “limited set” of documents that could include information protected by lawyer-client privilege.
According to Fox News, the DOJ said they would provide more information in a separate filing.
The DOJ also said that their department, and the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence “are currently facilitating a classification review of materials recovered pursuant to the search” and that the “ODNI is also leading an intelligence community assessment of the potential risk to national security that would result from the disclosure of these materials.”
It comes as a federal judge in Florida indicated that her “preliminary intent” was to appoint a special master to examine the trove of documents removed from the former US President’s residence and resort earlier this month.
US District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed by Mr Trump in 2020, cautioned that the order issued on Saturday, local time, should not be “construed as a final determination” on the former president’s motion.
Judge Aileen Cannon signalled support for Mr Trump’s motion to appoint the special master.
Justice Cannon, a judge in the Southern District of Florida, set a hearing for Thursday and gave the Justice Department a Wednesday deadline to file a response to Mr Trump’s motion, as well as a “more detailed” property receipt of what was removed from the Palm Beach property during the August 8 raid and the status of the review of the documents.
She noted that a “filter team” was already conducting a review of the materials.
Mr Trump, who has condemned the search for documents at his ocean-side home, filed a motion last week to appoint the special master.
“Law enforcement is a shield that protects Americans. It cannot be used as a weapon for political purposes,” Mr Trump’s legal team said in the filing.
“Therefore, we seek judicial assistance in the aftermath of an unprecedented and unnecessary raid on President Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago.”
In a message on his Truth Social platform on Saturday, Mr Trump reiterated his belief that the raid was politically motivated because he said he is the “clear frontrunner” in the 2024 Republican presidential primary.
“Federal Judge in Florida just took over the Presidential Records Act case, including the unprecedented, unnecessary, and unannounced FBI/DOJ Raid (Break-In!) of my home, Mar-a-Lago. This assault was done for political purposes just prior to the Midterm Elections (and 2024, of course!),” he said in the posting cited by the New York Post.
“It is a disgrace to our now Third World Nation! ”
Justice Cannon’s two-page ruling came a day after the Justice Department released the heavily redacted affidavit used to get a judge to sign off on the search of Mr Trump’s estate for classified documents.
The FBI said in the 38-page document said the raid was warranted because a review of boxes of documents the National Archives and Records Administration removed from Mar-a-Lago in January turned up sensitive materials.
Some of them were marked “HCS,” an abbreviation for the HUMINT Control System, which refers to highly classified government measures used to “protect intelligence information derived from clandestine human sources. ”
Of the 184 classified documents retrieved, 25 were marked as top secret, 92 were labelled secret and another 67 were confidential, the affidavit says.
– Additional reporting by AFP
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Originally published as Secret files ‘likely concealed’ at Trump mansion to block FBI probe
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