Issued on: 31/08/2022 – 23:56
Top-secret documents found in Donald Trump’s Florida home were “probably hidden” to hinder an FBI investigation into the former president’s possible mishandling of classified material, the Justice Department said in an explosive new court filing.
The dossier, released late Tuesday, provides the most detailed account yet of a year-and-a-half effort to recover hundreds of classified documents that were falsely brought to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate when he died in January 2021. left office.
And the claim of obstruction is mounting legal pressure on the Republican former president — who denies all wrongdoing and this month denounced an unprecedented FBI raid on his palatial home as part of a “witch hunt.”
The August 8 raid was triggered by a review of “top secret” records that Trump finally turned over to authorities in January this year — after months of back and forth with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
The Justice Department began investigating the case after it was found that the 15 boxes contained national defense information, including 184 documents marked confidential, classified or top secret, an affidavit from the government showed.
At the behest of the FBI, Trump’s attorney would eventually hand over another 38 classified documents — and provide an “affidavit” that they represented the latest material.
But it didn’t stop there: The FBI uncovered “multiple sources of evidence” showing that secret documents had been left behind in Mar-a-Lago, the new filing said.
When agents conducted their court-ordered searches, they found material so sensitive that “even FBI counterintelligence personnel and DOJ attorneys conducting the review required additional permissions before being allowed to view certain documents,” it reads. .
Notably, the submission contained a photograph of color-coded documents, spread across a carpet, marked “SECRET” and “TOP SECRET”.
Now, as the filing made clear, prosecutors are trying to determine whether Trump or anyone close to him has acted criminally to prevent federal agents from retrieving classified documents.
It cited “evidence that government documents were likely hidden and removed from storage (at Trump’s estate) and that attempts were likely made to obstruct the government’s investigation.”
Trump hit back at the release of the photo in a post on his Truth Social network.
“Awful way the FBI was throwing documents indiscriminately during the Mar-a-Lago raid (perhaps pretending it was me who did it!), then started taking pictures of them for the public to see,” He wrote.
‘Delayed access’
During the raid, according to Tuesday’s report, agents found more than 100 documents with classification marks, bringing the total number of classified documents recovered from the former president to more than 300.
Trump, who is considering another White House run in 2024, has accused the Justice Department under Democratic President Joe Biden of pursuing a vendetta against him, saying the judge should “never have broken into my house.”
The former president has taken legal action to seek the appointment of an independent party, or “special master,” to screen the seized files for material protected by personal privileges.
The government says appointing a special captain, who could potentially block investigators’ access to the seized documents, “would significantly harm important government interests, including national security interests.”
The Justice Department further explained that it had provided detailed background information on the lead-up to the raid in an effort to “correct the incomplete and inaccurate narrative” as outlined by Trump’s attorneys.
Trump has until 8 p.m. (0000 GMT) to file a response, with a court hearing for Thursday on his special request.
The Mar-a-Lago search warrant, personally approved by Attorney General Merrick Garland, was based on suspected violations of the US Espionage Act related to the illegal retention of sensitive defense documents, on suspicion of obstruction and illegal destruction of government documents.
Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said the actions outlined in the briefing were “reckless to the extreme” and “deliberately” deceptive.
In addition to investigations in New York into his business practices, Trump is also under legal scrutiny for his efforts to reverse the results of the 2020 election, and for the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters.
Trump was impeached for a historic second time by the House of Representatives after the Capitol riots – he was charged with inciting insurgency – but was acquitted by the Senate.
(AFP)