Key Points From the Trump Affidavit

The Justice Department released its blacked-out version of the Mar-a-Lago affidavit Friday afternoon, and news outlets were scrambling to make sense of what could be read. In the affidavit, the department argued that the FBI search had to be conducted because a batch of documents retrieved from the Florida residence in January contained an alarming amount of classified information—14 of 15 boxes had documents with classified markings, reports the AP—and they were sure more were still at the residence. Coverage:

• Read the redacted affidavit yourself here.
• The department said the material retrieved in January included top-secret information obtained by "clandestine human resources" who were monitoring "foreign communications signals," per the Hill. If such information got into the wrong hands, it could compromise spies and their intel-gathering operations, said the affidavit.
• How did the department know that Trump had classified documents at Mar-a-Lago? Through "a significant number of civilian witnesses."

• The affidavit asserted that "there is also probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found” at the residence, per the Washington Post.
• Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich declared in a statement that “this is a grave travesty, and what is unredacted only further supports President Trump’s position, there was NO reason for a raid—it is all politics!” Trump himself is using the familiar phrase "witch hunt," per the New York Post.
• In terms of specifics, the affidavit said the boxes retrieved from Mar-a-Lago in January by the National Archives contained 184 classified documents—"25 of which were marked 'top secret,' 92 of which were marked 'secret,' and 67 of which were marked 'confidential'—the lowest level of national security classification," per Politico. Some of the “highly classified records were unfoldered, intermixed with other records, and otherwise unproperly [sic] identified," the affidavit said.
• In assessing the January batch, FBI agents "were most alarmed to discover that many of the materials included the highest national security restrictions, requiring they be held in controlled government storage facilities, and barring them from ever being shared with foreign governments," per the New York Times.
• On the first page of the affidavit, an FBI agent summed things up: “The government is conducting a criminal investigation concerning the improper removal and storage of classified information in unauthorized spaces, as well as the unlawful concealment or removal of government records."

(More Mar-a-Lago stories.)