Former President Donald Trump accused the FBI of “leaking” at unprecedented levels as the Justice Department complied with a court order to file proposed redactions to the affidavit underpinning the search warrant for Mar-a-Lago.
The Justice Department filed its proposed redactions to the Trump raid affidavit at noon on Thursday, after Florida Judge Bruce Reinhart said he was open to keeping the sought-after FBI document mostly sealed. Reinhart will now decide whether to release the redacted version or tell the DOJ that more information should be given to the public.
Just hours before the redactions were filed, Trump unloaded on the agency in a social media blitz.
TRUMP CALLS FOR SPECIAL MASTER AFTER FBI RAID
“The Justice Department and FBI are ‘leaking’ at levels never seen before — and I did nothing wrong!!!” Trump said on his Truth Social account.
The blitz came after it was reported this week that the National Archives and Records Administration initially retrieved 150 documents with classified markings from Trump in January and has recovered more than 300 classified records total, including evidence seized from Mar-a-Lago in early August.
Last week, the DOJ announced its opposition to the release of the underlying justification for its search, just days after it agreed to unseal the FBI warrant for the search of Trump’s Florida resort. The unsealed search warrant application cover sheet provided more details on what the Justice Department was looking for.
The records show Trump was being investigated under 18 U.S.C. 793, part of the Espionage Act, and said it was related to “willful retention of national defense information.” The unsealed cover sheet pointed to 18 U.S.C. 2071, specifically the “concealment or removal of government records,” as well as 18 U.S.C. 1519, specifically related to “obstruction of federal investigation.”
Trump filed a motion on Monday seeking an order from a judge to appoint a special master and stop the Justice Department from further review of the information it had seized from his resort in Florida until the special master is appointed. Trump also asked the judge to require the DOJ to provide a more detailed receipt for the property it had seized from him and to order federal investigators to return all items to him that had been taken but were outside the search warrant’s scope.
DOJ spokesman Anthony Coley said the Mar-a-Lago search warrant “was authorized by a federal court” and that the Justice Department will respond in court.
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The items seized by the FBI earlier this month reportedly included “various classified/[top secret]/[sensitive compartmented information] documents,” four “miscellaneous top secret documents,” three “miscellaneous secret documents,” two “miscellaneous confidential documents,” and one “confidential document.”
Trump and his allies have claimed he declassified the records, with the former president contending he had a “standing order” throughout his presidency that “documents removed from the Oval Office and taken to the residence were deemed to be declassified the moment he removed them.” Several former Trump administration officials have cast doubt on that notion.
