US government: FBI seized top secret docs at Trump’s home

FBI agents who searched former President Donald Trump’s Florida home Monday seized 11 sets of classified documents, including some marked as top secret, the US Justice Department says.

The bombshell disclosures were made in a search warrant approved by a US magistrate judge and accompanying documents released four days after the agents searched Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach.   

The search, under the Espionage Act, was conducted as part of a federal probe into whether Trump illegally removed documents when he left office in January 2021 after being defeated by his Democratic Party rival Joe Biden in the presidential election two months earlier.

The Espionage Act, one of three laws cited in the warrant application, dates to 1917 and makes it a crime to release information that could harm national security. The law was initially enacted to combat spying.

Trump, however, rejected the Biden administration’s Justice Department claims in a statement posted on his social media platform, insisting that the records were "all declassified" and placed in "secure storage."

"They didn't need to 'seize' anything. They could have had it anytime they wanted without playing politics and breaking into Mar-a-Lago," added the hawkish Republican politician who has vowed to run again in 2024 presidential election.

Although the FBI removed on Monday material labeled as classified, the three laws cited as the basis for the warrant make it a crime to mishandle government records, regardless of whether they are classified. Thus, Trump's claims that he declassified the documents would have no bearing on the potential legal violations at issue.

The Justice Department has used the Espionage Act in high-profile cases in recent years, including former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, former military intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

All three were involved in leaking secret documents unveiling US military atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as massive electronic surveillance of top government officials, groups and even ordinary people across the globe.  

The Justice Department underlined in the warrant application approved by US Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart that it had probable cause to believe violations of the Espionage Act had occurred at Trump's home.

US Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on Thursday that the department asked Reinhart to unseal the warrant, which prompted Trump's claim that the search amounted to political retribution, further suggesting that the FBI may have planted evidence against him.

Since Monday's search, the department has also faced fierce criticism and online threats by right-wing activists, which Garland has censured.

Trump supporters and some Republicans in Washington have further accused Democrats of weaponizing the federal bureaucracy to target the former president.

SS