NY Post
The Justice Department on Friday finally released a heavily redacted affidavit justifying the unprecedented Aug. 8 FBI raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate amid the ongoing probe into whether he improperly handled classified documents. The 32-page affidavit, even in its blacked out form, underscores the volume of sensitive government documents located at Trump’s estate and reveals FBI concerns that the records were being retained illegally. “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,” an unidentified FBI agent wrote on the first page of the affidavit. While the affidavit didn’t provide new details about the 11 sets of classified records recovered during the Aug. 8 search, it raised concerns about a separate batch of 15 boxes that the National Archives and Records Administration had retrieved from Mar-a-Lago in January. A preliminary search of that material uncovered documents with classification markings in 14 of the boxes — including “184 unique documents bearing classification markings, including 67 documents marked as CONFIDENTIAL, 92 documents marked as SECRET, and 25 documents marked as TOP SECRET,” the affidavit said.
