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Trump Search Redacted Affidavit Released, Demand Causes Website to Crash

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The Justice Department released a redacted affidavit Friday that explains the justification of the Aug. 8 FBI search of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida.

The 32-page affidavit reveals that 14 of the 15 boxes handed over to the National Archives for record-keeping earlier this year contained documents with classification markings. Sixty-seven documents were marked "confidential," 92 were marked "secret" and 25 were marked "top secret."

The affidavit also explained the storage locations for those documents were not authorized to store classified information.

Those documents were recovered before the FBI's search earlier this month. It led to the "probable cause" to search the former president's estate for "evidence, contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed in violation" of three criminal codes, including the espionage act.

The document is a redacted form of an affidavit, or sworn statement, that the FBI submitted to a judge so it could obtain a warrant to search Trump's property. Affidavits typically contain vital information about an investigation, with agents spelling out to a judge the justification for why they want to search a particular property and why they believe they're likely to find evidence of a potential crime there. 

U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart acknowledged the redactions could be so extensive as to render it useless. But he said he continued to believe it should not remain sealed in its entirety because of the "intense" public interest in the investigation.

The website where Reinhart posted the unsealed affidavit repeatedly crashed due to the overwhelming demand. 

You can read the affidavit here. 

When President Joe Biden was asked if he was concerned that national security had been compromised at Mar-a-Lago, he said that will be up to the Department of Justice. 

"We'll let the Justice Department determine that. We'll see what happens," he said. 

Taylor Budowich, the director of communications for Trump's office and Save America, tweeted, "The release of a heavily redacted, overtly political affidavit only proves that the Biden administration is desperate to cover up their unprecedented, unnecessary, and un-American raid against President Donald J. Trump."

In a second tweet, Budowich wrote, This is a grave travesty, and what is unredacted only further supports President Trump's position, there was NO reason for a raid - it is all politics!"

As CBN News reported earlier this week, lawyers for Trump have asked a federal judge to halt the FBI's review of the documents that were taken from his Florida estate earlier this month until a neutral special master can be appointed to inspect the records.

Trump's legal team filed a 27-page motion Monday for an independent special master, usually a retired judge, to review all of the documents and identify any that don't fall under the search warrant or are protected by the executive or attorney-client privilege. Executive privilege is a principle that permits presidents to withhold certain communications from public disclosure.

The request was included in a federal lawsuit, the first filing by Trump's legal team in the two weeks since the search, that takes broad aim at the FBI investigation into the discovery of classified records at Mar-a-Lago and that foreshadows arguments his lawyers are expected to make as the probe proceeds.

Several media reports claim Trump had more than 300 classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. 

One hundred and fifty documents were returned to the National Archives in January. Another batch was turned over to the Justice Department in May. The rest were seized in the raid on the 45th president's home on Aug. 8. 

 At least 30 federal agents spent more than nine hours searching Trump's Mar-a-Lago home, reportedly removing more than 12 boxes of documents.

The lawsuit calls the search a "shockingly aggressive move" and attacks the search warrant as overly broad. It contends that Trump is entitled to a more detailed description of the records seized from the home and argues the FBI and the Justice Department have long treated him "unfairly."

"Law enforcement is a shield that protects America. It cannot be used as a weapon for political purposes," the lawyers wrote Monday. "Therefore, we seek judicial assistance in the aftermath of an unprecedented and unnecessary raid."

Justice Department spokesman Anthony Coley responded to Trump's filing with a three-sentence statement.  

"The Aug. 8 search warrant at Mar-a-Lago was authorized by a federal court upon the required finding of probable cause. The Department is aware of this evening's motion. The United States will file its response in court," the full statement said. 

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