By: Alexandra Wong
Since the raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, many news organizations like the Associated Press have submitted court filings requesting the search warrant of Trump’s estate to unearth the affidavit the Justice Department submitted. Trump even called for the affidavit’s release in the name of transparency in a Truth Social post. But, this past Monday, August 15, the Department of Justice (DOJ) repudiated these attempts to make the affidavit public. For them, the investigation “implicates highly classified material,” and the document contains highly sensitive information about the witnesses involved. Juan Antonio Gonzalez, the U.S. attorney in Miami, and Jay Bratt, a national security official at the DOJ, say making the affidavit public would “cause significant and irreparable damage to this ongoing criminal investigation.”
According to a property receipt released Friday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) took 11 sets of classified documents from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. Many had the label “top secret,” and some had “sensitive compartmented information.” “Sensitive compartmented information” is a specific label for the nation’s most important secrets. If revealed, the information could result in “exceptionally grave” damage to the U.S. Still, we do not know any specific details about any information the documents might have.
Along with the property receipt, the search warrant said federal agents were investigating Trump’s potential violation of three federal laws. One deals with gathering, transmitting, or losing defense information under the Espionage Act. Another deals with the concealment, mutilation, or removal of records and the destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations.
Yet, with all this new information, it is still unclear whether the DOJ searched Trump’s residence as part of an extensive criminal investigation, merely to retrieve the records, or to prosecute Trump. They say the investigation is still active, but releasing more information could comprise the witnesses’ safety and discourage others to come forward, halting the investigation’s progress. “If disclosed, the affidavit would serve as a roadmap to the government’s ongoing investigation, providing specific details about its direction and likely course, in a manner that is highly likely to compromise future investigative steps,” reads the court filing.
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