A lawyer for Donald Trump signed a written statement in June saying that all classified material kept in boxes at the former president’s Florida home had been returned to the US government, revealed a report in The New York Times this Saturday (13). ).
Trump is being investigated for possible crimes of espionage, obstruction of justice and destruction of government materials. Last Monday (8), FBI agents removed 20 boxes from his mansion in Mar-a-Lago, containing 11 sets of documents with some kind of classified classification.
According to the newspaper, the existence of the statement is a possible indication that the former president or his team were not fully transparent with federal investigators, as the seizure revealed otherwise.
The agreement was reportedly signed after Jay Bratt, a senior national security official at the US Department of Justice, visited the Florida beach club on June 3, where he met with two Trump lawyers to discuss the handling of information. confidential.
The discovery of the statement also helps explain why the search warrant used on Monday cited a possible violation of a criminal law related to obstruction.
On Friday, Trump said he had removed the secrecy of all material found in his possession while he was still in office, but did not provide any proof that he had done so.
In a statement published Saturday, Taylor Budowich, a spokesman for Trump, neither confirmed nor denied the New York Times report, but criticized the FBI’s search, saying it was an unprecedented and unnecessary incursion, which was part of a “witch hunt fabricated by the Democrats”.
Reuters was unable to independently confirm the report, nor did it get an immediate response from the Justice Department.
The search warrant released later this week showed Trump is under federal investigation for possible violations of the Espionage Act, which prohibits spying for another country or manipulating US defense information, including sharing it with unauthorized persons.
Last year, officials at the US National Archives discovered that, after leaving the White House in January 2021, Trump took a series of government documents that should have been sent to archives. In January 2022, the former president returned 15 boxes of materials, which included several pages marked with some degree of secrecy — prompting archivists to sue the Department of Justice.
The authorities then issued a subpoena asking Trump to return documents they believed were in his possession. As part of that effort Jay Bratt, the top US security official, went to Florida in June, where he met with attorneys for the former president, who showed them boxes containing documents taken from the White House.
According to the New York Times, Bratt and his team left with the material and also obtained a written statement from one of the lawyers attesting that every document classified as classified had been delivered.
However, material taken from Trump’s home by FBI agents contained 11 sets of documents with some sort of confidential or secret marking. Some even belonged to categories that only allow viewing within a secure government facility.
It was Trump himself who revealed late Monday afternoon that his Florida home had been the target of a search operation. In the American press, there is already talk of secret information about nuclear research.
On Telegram, the former president said that this accusation “is a hoax”, as would the accusations that he was helped by the Russians in the election and the impeachment proceedings he suffered.
On Thursday (11), after a series of allegations of political persecution, US Attorney General Merrick Garland, secretary of the Department of Justice, to which the FBI reports, went on TV to say that he personally approved the operation, indicating only having made this decision after trying less invasive measures before.
Trump has never left the US political landscape since he left the presidency about a year and a half ago, but he has rarely been as smothered as he has this week. In addition to the unprecedented search of his home, which could turn into a criminal case, he invoked the right to remain silent 440 times during a deposition to authorities in New York.
The attack on the former president, publicly admitted by the Justice Department of the Joe Biden administration, raised tensions in the country. On Thursday, a gunman tried to break into an FBI building in Cincinnati (Ohio), exchanged fire with agents and was chased until he was killed. The gunman was a prolific Trump supporter on social media, and the corporation is investigating whether he has links to extremist groups in the country.
