Recovering National Security Documents - U.S. Code Citations - The Trump Warrant

Criminal Code Sections Cited in the Warrant

On August 8, Trump's property at Mar A Lago in Florida was served with the search warrant to recover documents illegally removed from the White House.  Under the 1978 Presidential Records Act, ALL Presidential documents -- either classified or not -- must be given to the National Archives when the President leaves office.  

Trump had flouted that law by taking significant amounts of documents and keeping them at his Florida property -- mostly unsecured.  Early in 2022, the National Archives had recovered 15 boxes of documents -- records showed a 100-page list of unclassified documents and a 3-page list of classified documents -- mostly too sensitive to even be described by topic.

More documents were found to be missing.  After attempts to find those documents, in May the DOJ empaneled a Grand Jury.  In June, government officials went to Mar A Lago and saw an unsecured room of boxes of more documents.  After requests and negotiations to get those documents were unsuccessful, the Grand Jury issued a subpoena, which was ignored by Trump.  Thus, a search warrant signed by Merrick Garland, Attorney General, and approved by the Court was executed on August 8 as the last resort.

Trump could have avoided the search warrant entirely by responding to requests and/or the subpoena.

The search warrant and inventory of property recovered were unsealed on August 12.

It cited three U.S. Code sections covering this extreme and inexcusable failure by Trump to turn over these documents:

• 18 U.S.C. 2071 -- Concealment, removal or mutilation of federal records.

• 18 U.S.C. 1519 -- Destruction, alteration or falsification of federal records.

• 18 U.S.C. 793 -- Espionage Act -- Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information. Willful/grossly negligent removal of information relating to the national defense.

The inventory attached to the warrant revealed that more than 20 boxes of documents were recovered and included 11 sets of classified materials:

• One set of materials was clearly identified as “Top Secret/SCI” -- requiring that those documents ONLY be observed in secured compartmentalized locations -- one of the highest possible classifications for national security.

• Four sets of materials were identified as “Top Secret”.

• Three sets of materials identified as “Secret”.

• Three sets of materials identified as “Confidential”.

There were claims from unidentified sources that the documents kept by Trump included nuclear information -- including nuclear weapons. Due to the extreme sensitivity of such documents, we may never know for sure.

However, the presence of the Espionage Act citation in the warrant specifically deals with national defense information. Plus the finding of TS/SCI classified documents suggests that the documents recovered are of extreme national security sensitivity.

Will we ever know why Trump took these documents?  Will we ever know what he planned to do with them?   Do we know if we now have all the documents he took illegally?