A 38-page affidavit was released claiming the FBI had “probable cause to believe” that President Donald Trump’s home contained classified information following the raid of his private home at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month.
“The government is conducting a criminal investigation concerning the improper removal and storage of classified information in unauthorized spaces, as well as the unlawful concealment or removal of government records,” the affidavit stated.
Majority of the pages have been significantly redacted at the FBI’s request, which rendered the document nearly worthless for the American public.
“The ‘heavily redacted’ affidavit says all it needs to say,” tweeted one user sarcastically, while another one posted excerpts of the heavily redacted affidavit with a sardonic caption, saying: “Affidavit screenshots in case you don’t have time to read through it.”
The 'heavily redacted' affadavit says all it needs to say. pic.twitter.com/ZeaOf3JzC0
— Niels Nielsen (@NielsNielsenAV) August 26, 2022
The unprecedented search of Trump’s home comes as the investigation into his time in office and private business escalates. Any search of a private residence would have to be approved by a judge after the investigating law enforcement agency demonstrated probable cause that the search was justified.
However, the FBI insisted that they had “probable cause to believe that additional documents that contain classified NDI or that are presidential records subject to record retention requirements currently remain at the premises.”
Trump and his legal team already filed a motion last week seeking an independent review of the records seized by authorities.
“They demanded that the security cameras be turned off, a request we rightfully denied. They prevented my attorneys from observing what was being taken in the raid, saying ‘absolutely not,'” he said in a statement. “They took documents covered by attorney-client and executive privilege, which is not allowed. They took my passports. They even brought a ‘safe cracker’ and successfully broke into my personal safe, which revealed… nothing!”
The former president also said that they are “demanding that all items wrongfully taken from my home be IMMEDIATELY returned.”
“I will never stop fighting for the American people, our Country, and the Rule of Law. Make America Great Again!” he added.
Trump is the only former president to be raided by the FBI, including President Barack Obama, who Trump has alleged was a part of spying on his 2016 presidential campaign against Hillary Clinton.
