August 12, 2022 01:39 PM UTC

Trump Being Investigated for Violating Espionage Act

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE #2: Via POLITICO, Republicans are starting to feel the hangover from their “defend Trump” bender earlier this week:

As new information emerged about the circumstances behind the FBI search, the contrast grew starker between Republicans advancing a knee-jerk defense of the former president and those who are simply calling for additional disclosures from DOJ.

Among the senior Republicans acknowledging that it’s possible the presence of highly classified information at Mar-a-Lago would be a genuine national security concern was Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee…

…Turner was also one of several Republicans who’d lambasted DOJ earlier this week to reorient his criticism from the decision to search Mar-a-Lago to the process the department used: “There were many other options available to them … besides raiding Mar-a-Lago and spending nine hours there.”

Some Republicans are leaving open the possibility that Trump acted inappropriately. In an interview, Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah), an Intelligence Committee member, said it was important for the panel to glean additional information and acknowledged that mishandling of sensitive classified information would be a serious violation.

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UPDATE: As Max Boot writes for The Washington Post:

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As The Los Angeles Times reports, we’re starting to learn just how bad things are looking for former President Donald Trump:

FBI agents removed 11 sets of classified documents — including some marked top secret and meant to be available only in special government facilities — from former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Monday.

The itemized list of items taken from the property, which was released Friday at the Department of Justice’s request along with the accompanying warrant, includes one set of documents marked as “Various classified/TS/SCI documents,” which is an abbreviation that refers to top-secret/sensitive compartmented information. In addition,agents recovered four sets of top secret documents, three sets of secret documents and three sets of confidential documents, according to the newly public information.

The list, released by U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart Friday with the text of the warrant, does not include details on the subject matter of the documents.

According to the search warrant, the alleged crimes under investigation are violations of the Espionage Act, which outlaws the unauthorized retention of national security information that could harm the United States or aid a foreign adversary; a federal law that makes it a crime to destroy or conceal a document in order to obstruct a government investigation; and another statute associated with unlawful removal of government materials. [Pols emphasis]

Copies of the unsealed documents are now floating around online:

Here’s the unsealed trump docs. pic.twitter.com/ZfJL3xyRiI

— Seamus Hughes (@SeamusHughes) August 12, 2022

Here’s more from The Associated Press on some of the items uncovered at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence:

The warrant details that federal agents were investigating potential violations of three different federal laws, including one that governs gathering, transmitting or losing defense information under the Espionage Act. The other statutes address the concealment, mutilation or removal of records and the destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations.

The property receipt also showed federal agents collected other potential presidential records, including the order pardoning Trump ally Roger Stone, a “leatherbound box of documents,” and information about the “President of France.” A binder of photos, a handwritten note, “miscellaneous secret documents” and “miscellaneous confidential documents” were also seized in the search.

Trump’s attorney, Christina Bobb, who was present at Mar-a-Lago when the agents conducted the search, signed both property receipts — one that was two pages long and another that is a single page. [Pols emphasis]

Among Trump’s many claims/excuses related to the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago on Monday were that his attorneys were not allowed to be present at the time of the search; the fact that one of his attorneys SIGNED THE PROPERTY RECEIPTS makes this argument considerably less useful.

We’ll continue to update this post as more information becomes available.