Several US media outlets, as well as Republican congressmen, have called for the FBI’s search warrant against Trump to be made public.
The Ministry of Justice points out that the search itself, as well as a list of the items seized, has already been made public. But believes that consideration must be given to the FBI’s documentation on why a search was necessary. It is, among other things, about protecting an ongoing criminal investigation that deals with national security, says the authority.
During the raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Florida residence last week, the FBI seized a number of boxes of material, including eleven sets of documents marked as containing highly sensitive information – intended only to be accessible to specific agencies.
The published search warrant shows that the FBI is investigating possible violations of three federal laws, the most serious of which falls under the Espionage Act. The suspicions do not concern direct espionage, but the collection, dissemination or loss of classified material.
Trump claims that the crackdown is politically motivated, and that the documents are not, in fact, classified. As president, he reportedly had a standing order to declassify documents the moment they were brought from the White House to Mar-a-Lago.