WASHINGTON, Aug 27, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - The stunning FBI raid on Donald Trump's
palatial Florida home was triggered by a review of 15 boxes of records
previously surrendered by the former US president that contained top secret
information -- including about human intelligence sources.

The FBI, in the affidavit used to justify the August 8 raid of Mar-a-Lago,
said it was conducting a criminal investigation into "improper removal and
storage of classified information" and "unlawful concealment of government
records."

The heavily-redacted FBI affidavit released on Friday laid out the grounds
for the authorization by a Florida judge of an unprecedented raid on the home
of a former president, a move which ignited a political firestorm in a
bitterly divided nation.

The Republican Trump, who is weighing another White House run in 2024,
accused the Justice Department under Democratic President Joe Biden of
conducting a "witch hunt" and said the judge "should never have allowed the
Break-in of my home."

According to the affidavit, the FBI opened the investigation after the
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) received 15 boxes of
records in January 2022 that had been improperly removed from the White House
and taken to Mar-a-Lago.

It said sensitive National Defense Information was among the records
recovered including 67 documents marked as confidential, 92 as secret and 25
as top secret.

Among the documents was intelligence information received from "clandestine
human sources" a classification which can include spies and informants and is
among the most tightly-held of government secrets.

"Highly classified records were unfoldered, intermixed with other records and
otherwise unproperly identified," according to the affidavit. "Several of the
documents also contained what appears to be (Trump's) handwritten notes."

In June, according to the affidavit, the Justice Department informed a Trump
lawyer that Mar-a-Lago was "not authorized to store classified information."

When they raided Trump's estate in Palm Beach two months later, FBI agents
seized a further stash of documents marked "Top Secret," "Secret" and
"Confidential."

- 'The movers' -

In a May 25, 2022 letter to the Justice Department released along with the
affidavit, a lawyer for Trump said classified information may have been
"unknowingly included among the boxes brought to Mar-a-Lago by the movers."

The lawyer, Evan Corcoran, said Trump had "readily and voluntarily"
cooperated with NARA's request that records be returned and that said any
investigation should not "involve politics."

Corcoran asserted that a president has the "absolute authority to declassify
documents" and the "criminal statute that governs the unauthorized removal
and retention of classified documents or material does not apply to the
president."

Government lawyers had opposed the release of the affidavit but the judge
ordered it unsealed with redactions the Justice Department said were
necessary to protect an ongoing investigation involving national security.

The redactions in the 38-page affidavit included, for example, the removal of
the names of what the Justice Department said were a "significant number of
civilian witnesses."

"If witnesses' identities are exposed, they could be subjected to harms
including retaliation, intimidation, or harassment, and even threats to their
physical safety," the Justice Department said.

The search warrant, which was personally approved by Attorney General Merrick
Garland, authorized the FBI to search the "45 office" -- a reference to the
45th US president's private office at Mar-a-Lago -- and storage rooms

It said the probe was related to "willful retention of national defense
information," an offense that falls under the Espionage Act, and potential
"obstruction of a federal investigation."

In addition to investigations in New York into his business practices, Trump
faces legal scrutiny for his efforts to overturn the results of the November
2020 election, and for the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by his
supporters.

Trump was impeached for a historic second time by the House of
Representatives after the Capitol riot -- he was charged with inciting an
insurrection -- but was acquitted by the Senate.