FBI, Trump & Mar-a-Lago: What Exactly is Going On?
© AFP 2023 / GIORGIO VIERA
Subscribe
This week turned out to provide quite the commotion at former US President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence after a team of FBI agents executed a search warrant, and collected various documents government officials have labeled classified.
Over a span of five days, former US President Donald Trump has stolen headlines as the media placed laser-focused attention on government documents that the one-term commander-in-chief maintained at his so-called "Winter White House."
But with reports on the subject being churned out by the hour and speculation being on the constant rise, what exactly is going on between Trump and the FBI?
FBI Sets the Stage
The FBI claims to have taken 11 sets of classified files—including "TS/SCI" (Top Secret / Sensitive Compartmented Information) documents—in their shocking raid of former US President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate Monday. Items allegedly retrieved include:
Binders of photos
Leather-bound box of documents
One "potential" presidential record
Single handwritten note
A document containing "info re: President of France”
Trump Responded By:
Calling out “sleazy” FBI officials who he suggested could have planted evidence
Denouncing allegations he’d mishandled nuclear weapons documents as “a hoax”
Fiercely condemning the raid, labeling it “unprecedented political weaponization of law enforcement” by “radical left Democrats”
The warrant gave the FBI the green light to search “storage rooms, and all other rooms or areas within the premises used or available to be used by FPOTUS and his staff and in which boxes or documents could be stored, including all structures or buildings on the estate.”
Feds Say They Were Looking For:
“Any physical documents with classifications markings” and surrounding boxes
“Information…. regarding the retrieval, storage, or transmission of national defense information or classified material”
"Any government and/or Presidential Records created between January 20, 2017, and January 20, 2021."
Any evidence of the “knowing alteration, destruction, or concealment of any government and/or Presidential Records” or classified documents
As Federalist co-founder Sean Davis pointed out on Twitter, this means Attorney General Merrick Garland “demanded the seizure of literally any record Trump ever saw, read, or created over the entire 4-year term of his presidency.”
The warrant reveals the FBI is investigating Trump for three potential violations of the Espionage Act:
18 U.S. Code §2071 — Concealment, removal or mutilation generally
18 U.S. Code § 793 — Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information
18 U.S. Code § 1519 — Destruction, alteration or falsification of records in Federal investigations
The ESPIONAGE ACT was created to silence anti-war voices in the run-up to WWI
It was used to jail dissidents like Socialist Party presidential candidate Eugene Debs, who was sentenced to 10 years hard labor for speaking out against US involvement in the war
US government use of the act spiked under President Obama, with prosecutions in recent years focusing on whistleblowers like Edward Snowden
US prosecutors have invoked the Espionage Act in their effort to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange after the Australian publisher revealed videos showing war crimes committed by US forces
