WASHINGTON, Aug 31 (ABC): Top secret documents found at Donald Trump’s Florida home were “likely concealed” to obstruct an FBI probe into the former president’s potential mishandling of classified materials, the Department of Justice said in an explosive new court filing.
The filing released late Tuesday provides the most detailed account yet of the motivation for the raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate — which was triggered by a review of highly classified records that he had previously surrendered to authorities. It appeared to clarify that prosecutors are seeking to determine whether Trump or anyone in his immediate orbit took criminal action to prevent federal agents from retrieving classified documents from the former president’s possession. Before the raid, the FBI uncovered “multiple sources of evidence” showing that “classified documents” remained at Mar-a-Lago, the filing says.
“The government also developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed… and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation,” the filing adds. When agents conducted their court-ordered search on August 8, they found material so sensitive that “even the FBI counterintelligence personnel and DOJ attorneys conducting the review required additional clearances before they were permitted to review certain documents,” the filing says.
In a striking image sure to reverberate around Washington, the filing included a photograph of color-coded documents spread out over a carpet, marked “SECRET” and “TOP SECRET.” Trump fired back at the photo’s release in a post on his Truth Social network. “Terrible the way the FBI, during the Raid of Mar-a-Lago, threw documents haphazardly all over the floor (perhaps pretending it was me that did it!), and then started taking pictures of them for the public to see,” he wrote. “Thought they wanted them kept Secret? Lucky I Declassified.”