Trump's lawyer told the DOJ in June that ALL classified documents at Mar-a-Lago had been returned to the government - sparking FBI raid
One of the lawyers working for Former President Donald Trump signed a written statement in June confirming that all classified material had been returned to the government.
The declaration was given to the Department of Justice on June 3 after a visit to Mar-a-Lago by top counterintelligence official Jay I. Bratt - two months before the FBI raid.
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home this week was raided by the FBI after authorities claim that the former president held onto a trove of classified documents after leaving office.
Four people with knowledge of the document told the New York Times that it is possible Trump and his team were not fully forthcoming with investigators about the material.
He is currently under investigation for obstruction of justice and violating the Espionage Act, according to the newly unsealed search warrant showing the FBI retrieved 11 sets of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago.
The former president insisted Friday that everything was 'declassified' and agents 'didn't need to seize anything.'
Some of the documents were marked 'top secret' and are meant to be kept in specialized government facilities, according to a copy of the warrant.
The FBI would have needed to prove reasonable suspicion that Trump committed a crime in holding on to the documents - criminal statutes cited in the warrant include espionage, removal of records and obstruction of justice.
It appears that in signing the declaration that all of the documents had been removed, his lawyers sparked the DOJ's decision to conduct the search on Monday.
In an attempt to resolve the dispute, Bratt and other officials visited the Florida home and spoke with Trump and two of his lawyers - Evan Corcoran and Christina Bobb.
Last year it was discovered that Trump had taken dozens of documents and government material with him when he left office in January 2021.
The material was supposed to have been sent to the archives under the terms of the Presidential Records Act.
He then returned 15 boxes of material in January this year, which was examined and found to be classified information.
That sparked the investigation with the DOJ and FBI, and Trump was advised to return any other documents that he had retained.
His team then signed the declaration that all the material had been removed in June, before a raid by the FBI on Monday which found further documents.
A spokesman for the former president, Taylor Budowich, said on Saturday, ‘Just like every Democrat-fabricated witch hunt previously, the water of this unprecedented and unnecessary raid is being carried by a media willing to run with suggestive leaks, anonymous sources and no hard facts.’
The search warrant stated that FBI agents carried out the search to look for evidence related to the possible violations of the Espionage Act.