A Florida magistrate has unsealed additional details from the FBI affidavit used to justify the search of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, revealing that one of the former president's lawyers claimed he was unaware of any sensitive records stored in private offices.
According to the newly unredacted portions, the lawyer stated in June that he had been advised all White House records were kept in a single storage room at Mar-a-Lago. However, during the August 8 search, FBI agents recovered three classified documents from a desk drawer in Trump's private office.
The affidavit also notes that some documents returned in June bore Trump's handwritten annotations, and his lawyer made no claim that the documents had been declassified. Among the 38 classified documents were five marked 'confidential', 16 'secret', and 17 'top secret', some of which could potentially identify human intelligence sources.
The newly released details also show that investigators requested surveillance footage from Mar-a-Lago dating back to January 2022. The unsealing comes after federal prosecutors sought greater transparency in the case, which has sparked political controversy and accusations from Trump of a witch hunt.
