The redacted affidavit supporting the search of Mar-a-Lago was released today.
The entirety of the affidavit submitted to the court was 37 pages. Absent a huge white collar case that covers a lot of inside trading and other business details, thirty-seven pages is an extraordinarily long affidavit, especially for an affidavit to simply get a search warrant for Top Secret documents. The length of the affidavit is proof that the government knew that it had to be overwhelming with respect to probable cause and as accurate and specific as possible.
Very few have had time to review the entirety of the document and fully analyze the meaning, that includes this site. But MSNBC reports that 67 documents were marked as Classified, 92 marked Secret, and 25 marked Top-Secret.
Former Director of Counter Intelligence Frank Figliuzzi said on MSNBC that he could not emphasize enough the danger in having those documents at Mar-a-Lago, that the documents would include human intelligence, signal intelligence, and defense of the United States.
Figliuzzi also said that the affidavit notes that the affidavit promises that there will be evidence of “obstruction” if the warrant is issued. Obstruction would consist of someone trying to destroy the documents, mislead the government, remark information, black out information, and other attempts to hide what Trump and his insiders might have been doing.
According to Politico:
Records the FBI obtained from Trump’s Florida home in advance of the Aug. 8 search bore indications they contained human source intelligence, intercepts under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and signals intelligence, as well as other tags indicating high sensitivity. Several of those tightly-controlled documents contained Trump’s “handwritten notes,” the partially-redacted affidavit detailing the Justice Department investigation says.
According to MSNB, paragraph 51 explicitly says that the documents were not secured, and – in reading into it a little, there is the belief that the lack of security relates to the obstruction charge.
According to Politico, the FBI also filed another document today that concerned protecting the identities of many witnesses, meaning there are perhaps far more witnesses than one might expect:
Prosecutors also added in another court filing unsealed Friday that the ongoing criminal probe into government records stashed at Trump’s Florida home has involved “a significant number of civilian witnesses” whose safety could be jeopardized if their identities were revealed.
Andrea Mitchell just emphasized that human intelligence and signals intelligence are the single most protected intelligence within the United States government and this affidavit references categories that encompass this specific kind of intelligence.
Last, the affidavit emphasizes this is an “ongoing investigation,” which verifies that this was not just about getting the government information back. The intelligence community has its secrets back. Now, the FBI wants more investigation into “why” Trump had the documents and what they might have been used for. It is the only explanation for continuing to investigate.
@JasonMiciak believes a day without learning is a day not lived. He is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is a Canadian-born dual citizen who spent his teen and college years in the Pacific Northwest and has since lived in seven states. He now enjoys life as a single dad of a young girl, writing from the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He loves crafting his flower pots, cooking, and currently studies philosophy of science, religion, and non-math principles behind quantum mechanics and cosmology. Please feel free to contact for speaking engagements or any concerns.