Former US President Donald Trump is under federal investigation for removal or destruction of records, obstruction of an investigation, and violating the Espionage Act, according to documents viewed by Politico.
The US news agency reported a receipt accompanying the search warrant used to raid the former president's Mar-a-Lago estate showed that Trump possessed documents marked with "TS/SCI," which indicate one of the highest levels of government classification; an item labelled "executive grant of clemency re: Roger Jason Stone," a reference to one of Trump's closest confidants who received a pardon in late 2020; and another item labelled "Info re: President of France".
The receipt shows FBI agents took 11 sets of classified records from the estate. The seized records include some that were marked classified as top secret and also "sensitive compartmented information," a special category meant to protect the nation's most important secrets and those that if revealed publicly would harm US interests. The court records did not provide specific details about the documents or what information they might contain.
The search warrant, which was made public on Friday (local time), comes after US Attorney General Merrick Garland declared there was "substantial public interest in this matter," and Trump backed the warrant's "immediate" release.
The decision to unseal the records was made by US Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, the same judge who signed off on the search warrant. The Justice Department told the judge Friday afternoon that Trump's lawyers did not object to the proposal to make it public.