The American intelligence community conducted damage control today (Saturday) after the Florida court allowed the release this weekend of the affidavit that the FBI attached to the search request at the Mar-a-Lago estate owned by former US President Donald Trump about a month ago. The decision to raid the estate was made after it was discovered Because documents in Trump’s possession allegedly contained sensitive information about human intelligence sources.
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Large parts of the 32 pages of the affidavit were censored by the prosecution due to fear that the former president and his associates would try to influence “civilian witnesses” and law enforcement officials involved in the sensitive investigation. Nevertheless, the visible parts provided new and dramatic details about the circumstances of the first raid of its kind on the home of the former American president.
According to the affidavit, in the 15 boxes with the documents that Trump transferred to the National Archives last January – after repeated requests since May 2021 – the agents of the Bureau discovered 184 classified documents, with 92 of them classified as “secret” and another 25 classified as “top secret”.
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Although it was not specifically stated what the classified documents contained, the affidavit indicates that investigators identified probable cause that the documents included materials gathered from electronic wiretapping, from intelligence gathered against foreign targets as part of court orders, and more importantly – information gathered from human sources whose identity disclosure could endanger the their lives in a real way.
In addition, the law enforcement authorities explained in the affidavit that there is probable cause that Trump and his associates may try to disrupt the investigation surrounding the suspicions that the former president violated the law, by possessing confidential documents in an unauthorized manner and by not returning to the National Archives all the documents from his term of office. Following this, media outlets in the country reported that the Director of the American Intelligence Community, Avril Haynes, informed the Intelligence Committee of the House of Representatives that the intelligence agencies are conducting damage control in light of the discovery of the classified documents.
As expected, Trump was quick to attack the Department of Justice and the FBI, as well as federal judge Bruce Reinhart, who allowed the release of the affidavit. President Joe Biden, who has so far avoided commenting on the affair, clarified that he did not know in advance about the search of the Trump mansion.