U.S. government releases report that led FBI to search Trump’s home

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” former president alleges after document’s release

The U.S. Department of Justice has released Friday the report with which the FBI claimed access to the mansion of former President Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago (Florida), where the federal security agency expected to find classified documents.

The 36-page document contains a battery of arguments with which the FBI justified the need to raid for the first time the residence of a former U.S. president. Part of the text is hidden, according to the Government to protect witnesses cited in the investigations.

The FBI places the origin of the suspicions in the “highly classified” documents discovered earlier this year in Trump’s home by the National Archives, responsible for guarding historical material. The agents discovered 184 unique documents and with express marks that they were secret information, 25 of them with the ‘top secret’ seal.

The release of the contents, the FBI warns, could have exposed clandestine intelligence assets and foreign intelligence-gathering tactics, according to CNN.

Investigators assumed that if they searched the mansion, they would find more theoretically protected documents, as they eventually did. The FBI seized eleven batches of classified materials during the search, which confirmed their suspicions.

They also feared that Trump was incurring a crime of obstruction of Justice, as they raised in their pleadings before the judge.

Trump has been quick to defend himself against what he has described as “a total public relations stunt” by the FBI and the Justice Department. In this sense, he has pointed out that the text is “very manipulated” and has defended his alleged willingness to collaborate, at least with the first voluntary delivery of documents.

“I did nothing wrong,” Trump said on his Truth Social profile, from where he also pointed to the judge in the case, Bruce Reinhart, reproaching him for signing the search warrant demanded by the FBI, according to CNN.

The current president, Joe Biden, has avoided speculating on the possible risks to national security arising from the fact that Trump had secret information in his home. “Let’s let the Justice Department determine that. Let’s see what happens,” he said in response to an explicit question from the press.

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre explained Friday that the president, Joe Biden, will not comment on the investigation that led to the search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago mansion.

“What concerns any comment, on anything related to this investigation, including any underlying material … we believe it is not appropriate for us to comment on this,” Jean-Pierre said at a press conference to reporters.

In this regard, he stressed that Biden considers it important that the Justice Department is independently investigating the case; however, “they are well aware,” so they are refraining from “sharing” information regarding possible changes to the White House and its procedures for handling protected information.