A Palm Beach court has released a detailed list of confidential documents seized by the FBI at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. Seven of them were considered “top secret.”
Donald Trump is coming under further pressure after an unprecedented raid on his Mar-a-Lago estate. There, FBI authorities had seized several containers of confidential documents at the beginning of August, which the former US president had probably illegally taken from the White House to his residence. Now a court in Palm Beach in the US state of Florida has published a detailed list of the seized materials.
According to it, investigators seized 33 containers of documents, including dozens of empty folders labeled “classified.” The court document also reveals that several documents marked classified and top secret were seized from Trump’s office.
Documents seized in the unprecedented search at Mar-a-Lago on August 8 included the following:
3 confidential (“confidential”) documents,
17 classified (“secret”) documents,
7 top secret documents.
In addition, several empty folders were discovered that were labeled “classified,” while others indicated that they were to be returned to the Staff Secretary/Military Advisor. The document released by the court also shows that some of the confidential documents were probably mixed in with other items such as books, magazines and newspaper clippings.
The U.S. Justice Department is currently investigating Trump for removing the documents from the White House. Upon leaving office, U.S. presidents must turn over all of their documents and emails to the National Archives. The Justice Department is investigating whether Trump improperly moved the records from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago estate after his term ends in January 2021. Trump’s legal team called the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation’s raid on Mar-a-Lago “unprecedented, unnecessary and legally unfounded.”
Investigative stop looms
The Justice Department’s criminal investigation into Trump could soon be massively compromised if the judge in charge, Aileen Cannon, agrees to appoint a neutral investigator at Trump’s request.
At Thursday’s hearing, however, Cannon hinted that she might be willing to allow U.S. intelligence agencies to continue reviewing the documents to assess the damage to national security – even if a special prosecutor is appointed.
The Justice Department had previously said in court filings that it had evidence that classified documents were intentionally withheld from the FBI when it tried to take them from Trump’s home in June. As a result, the Justice Department also opposes the appointment of a special counsel.
The source from which the news item was created: https://www.spiegel.de
