According to the US Department of Justice, the FBI seized top-secret documents during a raid on a property owned by former US President Donald Trump. The ministry also said it suspected Trump of violating the Espionage Act.
According to a recently released FBI list, investigators found a set of Top Secret/SCI documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, which are top secret and can only be viewed in special government facilities. Four sentences were classified as “Top Secret”, three more as “secret”, the remaining three as “confidential”. the Washington Post reported that the FBI was also looking for classified documents about nuclear weapons.
According to the list, the investigators also confiscated numerous boxes, a pardon for Trump confidante Roger Stone, unspecified information about the “President of France” and two photo albums. The papers that have now been published say nothing about the content of the documents.
Trump had previously the publication of the search warrant agreed. The ex-president wrote on the social network Truth Social, which he co-founded, that all confiscated documents had been released, meaning that secrecy had been lifted.
According to CNN, the US Department of Justice is also investigating suspected obstruction of justice and the criminal handling of government records. Trump could theoretically face up to 20 years in prison for obstructing justice alone. US Attorney General Merrick Garland stressed on Thursday that the presumption of innocence applies.
US National Archives disagree with Trump
After the Trump raid in Florida, law enforcement officials were sometimes heavily criticized. Concerns about violent attacks also grew. “Violence against law enforcement agencies is not a solution – no matter what or who someone is angry about,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday in Omaha, Nebraska. Trump had sharply criticized the operation and accused the government of his successor, Joe Biden, of abusing the FBI for political purposes.
The US National Archives have since rejected Trump’s claims that his predecessor Barack Obama kept secret documents after his departure. According to the legal requirements, after Obama left office in 2017, the National Archives “assumed the exclusive legal and physical custody of the Obama presidential records,” the state institution said. About 30 million pages of non-classified documents were kept in the Chicago area. Classified information would be kept in Washington.