The FBI sought to locate classified documents related to nuclear weapons, among other items, when agents searched former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, this week, people familiar with the investigation told The Washington Post.
The people did not offer additional details to the Post about “what type of information the agents were seeking” or whether any such documents were recovered, according to the paper.
The revelation adds key context to the Justice Department’s extraordinary decision to search the home of a former president.
As CNN previously reported, the criminal investigation started with concerns about missing documents raised by the National Archives, which made a criminal referral to the Justice Department upon discovering highly sensitive documents among the materials retrieved from Mar-a-Lago in January.
The 15 boxes contained some materials that were part of special access programs (SAP), a classification that includes protocols to significantly limit who would have access to the information, according to a source familiar with what the Archives discovered in the boxes. That led to FBI interviews with aides to grand jury subpoenas to this week’s court-authorized search and seizure of documents.
Though Attorney General Merrick Garland has declined to share specific details about the search, he said Thursday that he “personally approved” the decision to seek a warrant for the search of Trump’s Florida home.
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