The search warrant reveals that he is being investigated for violating the Espionage Law, obstruction of Justice and destruction of documents
Violation of the Espionage Law, obstruction of Justice and destruction of State documents. These are the three crimes for which Donald Trump is being investigated, according to the search warrant released early Friday that served the FBI to search the Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida last Monday in search of documents confidential information that the former president took from the White House. In case of conviction, these crimes could carry from economic fines to prison sentences and disqualification from holding political office.
The inventory of what was seized by the agents of the federal bureau of investigation shows that among the documents seized are twenty-six boxes each labeled with a number, as well as several folders of documents and photos with the labels top secret (top secret) or « confidential". Among them appears a document with the title "President of France" and another on the request for pardon of Roger Stone -a former adviser and confidant of Trump sentenced to three years in prison for lying to Congress, tampering with witnesses and obstructing an official process-, as well as numerous confidential documents without description.
The order approved by Palm Beach Judge Bruce Reindhart - who has been a donor to both the Republican Jeb Bush and Democrat Barack Obama campaigns - was signed on August 5, three days before the raid, and gave the FBI until the 19th of this month to register. That warrant listed what the FBI could seize: any document or box marked "classified," any evidence of data transmission or national security information, and any presidential files created between January 20, 2017, and January 20. 2021, the four years in office of Donald Trump. They could also search for any evidence of destruction of documents from the Presidency.
The order details the characteristics of Mar-a-Lago, a mansion with "approximately 58 bedrooms and 33 bathrooms" located on a 6.8-hectare property and in which "office 45" could also be searched, alluding to the number that Trump occupies as president of the United States.
According to The Washington Post, in one of the three registered locations - the former president's office, his bedroom and the storage room - very sensitive documents on nuclear weapons were hidden, classified as "highly secret", "that could provide adversaries of United States an intelligence roadmap to build ways to counter those systems."
Trump defended himself on his own social network, Truth, by assuring that, “first of all, everything was declassified. Second, they did not need to 'seize' anything. They could have done it at any time, without doing politics or entering Mar-a-Lago. Everything was in a secure warehouse. [...] All they should have done was ask.”
Denial
In addition, Trump accused his predecessor, Barack Obama, of having also taken millions of documents when leaving the White House, something that the National Archives Administration denied in a statement, in which he stated that the former Democratic president delivered the documentation as establishes the law.
The national archive highlighted in its note that, as established by law, the former Democratic president has no control over where and how the material of his Administration, which lasted from 2009 to 2017, is kept.
Vice President Harris calls Republican rhetoric against the FBI 'dangerous'
The open investigation into former President Donald Trump further polarizes US politics with less than three months to go before the key midterm legislative elections. Vice President Kamala Harris yesterday called Republican rhetoric against the FBI's work on the search of Donald Trump's mansion "dangerous."
“It is irresponsible and dangerous for a leader to sustain rhetoric that exposes law enforcement,” the vice president told reporters in Oakland, California.
Harris claimed that FBI agents do "a very important job" to guarantee the safety of citizens and condemned attempts to harm the institution for "political reasons." Likewise, the vice president, who was California's attorney general, pointed out that she has "full confidence" that the Department of Justice is complying with the law.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi directly accused Trump of "instigating attacks on law enforcement" over his criticism of the FBI. On Thursday, a man was gunned down trying to enter the local FBI headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio, an incident that Democrats have linked to Republican criticism of police action at the FBI home. former president Trump.
