(Washington Examiner) FBI agents found several classified documents during their search of former President Donald Trump‘s Mar-a-Lago residence, with some documents being considered the highest level of classification, according to reports.
Investigators discovered “boxes everywhere” in at least two areas of Trump’s home, including his personal office and in a storage room near the pool, FBI agents told NewsNation. Some of these boxes contained sensitive material that may be so secret it’s unknown if investigators will ever publicly disclose what information was found.
Some of the documents that were recovered may have been related to classified nuclear weapons documents, sources told the Washington Post Thursday night.
It’s not clear what kind of information agents thought may have been included in the boxes taken from the White House or whether these documents were recovered, but experts told the outlet the unusual search points to deep concerns that the sensitive information could fall into the wrong hands.
Information on nuclear weapons materials is highly sensitive and is only given to top government officials, according to experts. If the FBI thought that information was located inside the Mar-a-Lago home, that could explain why agents acted with urgency to execute a warrant.
“If that is true, it would suggest that material residing unlawfully at Mar-a-Lago may have been classified at the highest classification level,” said David Laufman, former chief of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence section. “If the FBI and the Department of Justice believed there were top secret materials still at Mar-a-Lago, that would lend itself to greater ‘hair-on-fire’ motivation to recover that material as quickly as possible.”
Trump denied the nuclear report, calling the assumption a “hoax.”
“Nuclear weapons issue is a Hoax, just like Russia, Russia, Russia was a Hoax,” Trump said in a post on his social media platform Truth Social. “Two Impeachments were a Hoax, the Mueller investigation was a Hoax, and much more. Same sleazy people involved. Why wouldn’t the FBI allow the inspection of areas at Mar-a-Lago with our lawyer’s [sic], or others, present. Made them wait outside in the heat, wouldn’t let them get even close — said ‘ABSOLUTELY NOT.’ Planting information anyone?”
Trump has questioned the legality of the search, claiming there were no witnesses to observe the FBI’s behavior and that the FBI instructed people at the resort, including his lawyers, to steer clear of the premises as agents conducted the search.
The former president’s lawyers arrived at the Mar-a-Lago residence shortly after receiving news the FBI would be executing a search. However, one of his attorneys, Christina Bobb, said she was able to see the search warrant after a brief back-and-forth with the agents but was not allowed to see the affidavit that contains more details on why the search was permitted.
Attorney General Merrick Garland addressed the raid for the first time on Thursday, declining to disclose details of the search but confirming he had personally authorized it.
Just moments before Garland addressed the nation, the Department of Justice filed a motion to unseal the search warrant, with the motion arguing there is a “clear and powerful interest in understanding what occurred under these circumstances.”
“That said, the former President should have an opportunity to respond to this Motion and lodge objections, including with regards to any ‘legitimate privacy interests’ or the potential for other ‘injury’ if these materials are made public,” the filing stated.
Trump said he would not oppose the release of documents that were the subject of the FBI’s raid, calling the search an “unprecedented political weaponization of law enforcement” in a statement on Thursday.
