US FBI agents searched the Mar-a-Lago home of former US President Donald Trump in Palm Beach, Florida, because they thought the US Espionage Act had been broken. The Act says that officials can’t keep sensitive defense documents without a good reason.
The Justice Department says that the search team found at least 11 sets of classified papers, some of which were marked “top secret.”
The search was also done as part of an investigation by the federal government to find out if Trump took any official documents with him when he left office in January 2021. When he wanted to talk about the search, Trump went on social media to do so.
He said that all of the documents had been made public and put in “secure storage.” India Today quotes him as saying:
“There was nothing they needed to “seize.” They could have had it whenever they wanted without playing politics or breaking into Mar-a-Lago.”
Two months after the United States joined World War I, Congress passed the Espionage Act.
Donald Trump is being looked into because he might have broken the Espionage Act. During World War I, the Act was made to stop treason in the United States.
The documents that were found at his home in Florida are meant to be kept and looked at only in government buildings with extra security.
Federal authorities did the search to find “physical documents and records constituting evidence, contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed in violation of the Espionage Act of 1917.” This also makes it clear that the situation is serious.
The act was passed by Congress just two months after the United States joined World War I. The act mostly makes it illegal to get any kind of information from documents about national defense that could later hurt the United States or help another country.
The Act can also make it a crime for someone to stop someone from joining the military or navy or to be disloyal to the military or naval forces.
The Act not only stops sensitive information from getting out to people inside or outside of the US, but it also deals with cases of top-secret and classified official documents being mishandled.
Hillary Clinton, who ran against Trump in 2016, was also looked into under the Espionage Act because she used a personal email server where sensitive information was found.
James Comey, who used to be the head of the FBI, said that there wasn’t enough evidence against Clinton to show that she wanted to share top-secret information in a way that was against the law.
Even though the investigations are still going on, Donald Trump has not been charged with breaking the Espionage Act yet.
More about the fight between Donald Trump and the FBI
The FBI reportedly took 30 items, including 20 boxes, many binders of photos, a handwritten note to Trump’s longtime adviser Roger Stone and an executive pardon for him. Information about the “President of France” was also on the list.
The warrant said that FBI agents were supposed to search a room called the “45 Office.” This could be because Trump was the 45th President of the United States. They were also told to look in other rooms of the estate where papers might be kept.
The Justice Department says that US Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart signed off on the warrant. Even though the warrant didn’t say why the investigators had reason to think the Espionage Act had been broken, it did say that illegal or unauthorized possession of national defense information is against the law.
In the US, there are more cases related to the Espionage Act. For example, Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, was found guilty of 17 counts of breaking the Espionage Act because he got and shared top-secret government documents.
Edward Snowden, who used to work for the CIA, was also charged with breaking the law. In 2013, it was shown that he had given out secret documents about the National Security Agency’s surveillance program.