The FBI has found several documents containing state secrets during the search of the house of former US President Donald Trump. This is apparent from a search warrant released on Friday and a list of seized documents, Reuters news agency reported The New York Times. The papers include information about the presidential pardon to adviser Roger Stone and about French President Emmanuel Macron.
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Among the papers were several documents that Trump had not been allowed to take to his Mar-a-Lago resort after he became president in early 2021. Those should have been formally archived and parts should be kept in secure locations. In total, about twenty boxes of material were seized last Monday, eleven boxes of which contained classified documents.
Highest level state secret
The U.S. government uses three levels of state secrecy for certain documents. The materials seized at Mar-a-Lago contain papers of all three levels, from the lowest to the highest. The search was part of an investigation into whether the former president violated the Espionage Act.
Trump denies doing anything illegal and said he was fine with the release of the search warrant and a list of the seized documents. He argues that none of the papers were classified and that the FBI should have simply requested them from him. Earlier on Friday, it was announced that the FBI would have been looking for documents with information about the US nuclear weapons program.