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WASHINGTON - Donald Trump's former attorney general said Friday the US government appeared justified in raiding the former president's home to recover classified materials -- and that he suspected they have "good" evidence of obstruction.
Legal pressure on Trump has ratcheted up since the FBI's August 8 raid, with details emerging of documents labeled secret improperly stored at his Mar-a-Lago resort home in Florida, his team delaying authorities' access to the material, and then falsely claiming they had turned over all classified papers.
"For them to have taken things to the current point, they probably have good evidence," Bill Barr, who led the Justice Department in the latter half of the Trump administration, said on Fox News.
"If they clearly have the president moving stuff around, hiding stuff in his desk, and telling people to dissemble with the government, they may be inclined to bring that case," he said.
Barr spoke after a Florida court filing by the Justice Department detailed what the Federal Bureau of Investigation retrieved in its raid on the former president's estate, which is also an exclusive club for dues-paying members.
The filing showed highly classified government documents, including some marked "Top Secret," were discovered in his personal office, two months after Trump attorneys told Justice officials in a sworn certification that there were no more classified materials on the premises.
The detailed list of what was seized August 8 also showed Trump held on to more than 11,000 unclassified government records that he claims are his to keep -- but legally are owned by the National Archives.
"People say this was unprecedented," Barr said of the raid. "Well, it's also unprecedented for a president to take all this classified information and put them in a country club."
The list appeared to provide support for the Justice Department's probe.
In their warrant for the raid, they cited the Espionage Act which forbids the retention and sharing of highly sensitive documents pertaining to national defense; the law against obstructing investigation; and a law against destruction of government documents.
Among the papers seized were 18 documents labelled "top secret", 53 labelled "secret" and another 31 marked "confidential."
Of those, seven top secret files, 17 secret files and three confidential files were retrieved from Trump's private office.
Agents also found several dozen empty folders labelled "classified" in the office, raising speculation that sensitive documents may have been lost, destroyed or moved.
Much of what agents found there and in a separate storeroom was intermixed in boxes with Trump's personal legal files, clothing, gifts and books gathered in his final days in the White House in January 2021.
AFP
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