Blogging the Affidavit
As everyone probably knows by now, the affidavit used for the search of *’s home in Florida was published today. I will hit the highlights here. All quotes from the Washington Post article found here. All emphases mine.
The warrant authorizing the search said agents were seeking all “physical documents and records constituting evidence, contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed in violation of three potential crimes,” including a part of the Espionage Act outlawing gathering, transmitting, or losing national defense information. The warrant also cites destruction of records and concealment or mutilation of government material.
The article goes on to say that boxes removed earlier in May, showed that * was holding classified material, which would constitute probable cause. In other words, this was not a fishing expedition or a witch hunt.
The 38-page affidavit, which convinced a judge to authorize the search, says that when federal agents reviewed the contents of 15 boxes Trump returned to the National Archives earlier this year, they found documents with classification markings. Some were marked “HCS,” a category of highly classified government information; others related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and material meant not to be shared with foreign nations.-+
This is copypasta from the Affidavit text.
Under Executive Order 13526, information in any form may be classified ifit: (1) is owned by, produced by or for, or is under the control of the United States Government; (2) falls within one or more of the categories set forth in the Executive Order [Top Secret, Secret, and Confidential]; and (3) is classified by an original classification authority who determines that its unauthorized disclosure reasonably could be expected to result in damage to the national security. 10. Where such unauthorized disclosure could reasonably result in damage to the national security, the information may be classified as "Confidential" and must be properly safeguarded. Where such unauthorized disclosure could reasonably result in serious damage to the national security, the information may be classified as "Secret" and must be properly safeguarded. Where such unauthorized disclosure could reasonably result in exceptionally grave damage to the national security, the information may be classified as "Top Secret" and must be properly safeguarded.
In other words, the documents had no business being at Mar-a-Lago (MAL). What was he planning on doing with them?
Now, this is even more messed up.
Of most significant concern was that highly classified records were unfoldered, intermixed with other records, and otherwise unproperly [sic] identified."
The rest of the affidavit is largely redacted, but provides detailed arguments to support the above statements.
That’s it for now!