Former President Trump’s lawyer certified in a June letter that no classified material was still at Mar-a-Lago, two sources with knowledge of the investigation told Acesparks.
Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation executed a search warrant on the Florida estate of former President Donald Trump on Monday and seized items, which include 11 sets of material that are listed as classified.
Trump said after the warrant was publicly released on Friday that the documents taken by federal agents were “all declassified.”
Trump’s lawyers previously held a high-level meeting in June with people from the Justice Department and the FBI, which was briefly attended by the former president, but it is unclear if the letter was signed during the meeting.
FBI SEIZED CLASSIFIED RECORDS FROM MAR-A-LAGO DURING SEARCH OF TRUMP RESIDENCE
Lawyers for the former president could face serious legal consequences if they knowingly gave false information to law enforcement.
Agents from the FBI seized records that were marked as classified and some that were marked as top secret during their raid.
In a Truth Social post on Friday, after the warrant was made public, Trump disputed whether the documents seized by the FBI were classified.
LIVE UPDATES: FBI SEIZED CLASSIFIED RECORDS FROM MAR-A-LAGO DURING RAID OF TRUMP’S FLORIDA RESIDENCE
“Number one, it was all declassified. Number two, they didn’t need to ‘seize’ anything. They could have had it anytime they wanted without playing politics and breaking into Mar-a-Lago. It was in secured storage, with an additional lock put on as per their request…” Trump said. “They could have had it anytime they wanted—and that includes LONG ago. ALL THEY HAD TO DO WAS ASK. The bigger problem is, what are they going to do with the 33 million ges of documents, many of which are classified, that President Obama took to Chicago?”
After Trump’s social media post, the National Archives and Records Administration said in a press release that former President Obama is not in control over presidential records from his administration.
The warrant states that “45 Office,” all storage rooms and all other rooms used by Trump and his staff were searched on Monday.
Acesparks’ Bill Mears contributed to this report.
