Politics

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A lawyer for former U.S. President Donald Trump signed a statement in June that said all classified material held in boxes at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence had been returned to the government, the New York Times reported on Saturday.

The statement was signed after Jay Bratt, a top national security official in the U.S. Department of Justice, visited Trump’s South Florida beach club on June 3, the New York Times reported. Bratt met with two Trump lawyers to discuss the handling of classified information during the visit, the newspaper said.

Trump is under federal investigation for possible violations of the Espionage Act, which makes it unlawful to spy for another country or mishandle U.S. defense information, including sharing it with people not authorized to receive it, a search warrant made public on Friday showed.

FBI agents searched Mar-a-Lago this week and removed 11 sets of classified documents including some marked as top secret, according to the Justice Department.

The existence of the Trump attorney statement suggests that Trump and his team may not have fully disclosed information about classified documents in the former president’s residence, the Times reported.

Reuters was not able to independently confirm the report. The Justice Department declined to comment.

Taylor Budowich, a Trump spokesperson, criticized the FBI search in a statement as an “unprecedented and unnecessary raid” that was part of another “Democrat-fabricated witch hunt.”

Budowich did not confirm or deny the New York Times report.

The chairs of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee and the Committee on Oversight and Reform on Saturday asked the director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, to review what damage may have been done to national security by Trump’s having the highly classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

“Former President Trump’s conduct has potentially put our national security at grave risk. This issue demands a full review, in addition to the ongoing law enforcement inquiry,” the two committee chairs, both Democrats, said in a three-page letter, which they publicly released.

Representative Carolyn Maloney is chair of the Oversight Committee, and Representative Adam Schiff is chair of the Intelligence Committee.

(Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington; Additional reporting by Rami Ayyub and Idrees Ali; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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By Steve Holland and Karen Freifeld

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The seizure of classified U.S. government documents from Donald Trump’s sprawling Mar-a-Lago retreat spotlights the ongoing national security concerns presented by the former president, and the home he dubbed the Winter White House, some security experts say.

Trump is under federal investigation for possible violations of the Espionage Act, which makes it unlawful to spy for another country or mishandle U.S. defense information, including sharing it with people not authorized to receive it, a search warrant shows.

As president, Trump sometimes shared information, regardless of its sensitivity. Early in his presidency, he spontaneously gave highly classified information to Russia’s foreign minister about a planned Islamic State operation while he was in the Oval Office, U.S. officials said at the time.

But it was at Mar-a-Lago, where well-heeled members and guests attended weddings and fundraising dinners and frolicked on a breezy ocean patio, that U.S. intelligence seemed especially at risk.

The Secret Service said when Trump was president that it does not determine who is granted access to the club, but does do physical screenings to make sure no one brings in prohibited items, and further screening for guests in proximity to the president and other protectees.

The Justice Department’s search warrant raises concerns about national security, said former DOJ official Mary McCord.

“Clearly they thought it was very serious to get these materials back into secured space,” McCord said. “Even just retention of highly classified documents in improper storage – particularly given Mar-a-Lago, the foreign visitors there and others who might have connections with foreign governments and foreign agents – creates a significant national security threat.”

Trump, in a statement on his social media platform, said the records were “all declassified” and placed in “secure storage.”

McCord said, however, she saw no “plausible argument that he had made a conscious decision about each one of these to declassify them before he left.” After leaving office, she said, he did not have the power to declassify information.

Monday’s seizure by FBI agents of multiple sets of documents and dozens of boxes, including information about U.S. defense and a reference to the “French President,” poses a frightening scenario for intelligence professionals.

“It’s a nightmarish environment for a careful handling of highly classified information,” said a former U.S. intelligence officer. “It’s just a nightmare.”

The DOJ hasn’t provided specific information about how or where the documents and photos had been stored, but the club’s general vulnerabilities have been well documented.

In a high profile example, Trump huddled in 2017 with Japan’s then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at an outdoor dinner table while guests hovered nearby, listening and taking photos that they later posted on Twitter.

The dinner was disrupted by a North Korean missile test, and guests listened as Trump and Abe figured out what to say in response. After issuing a statement, Trump dropped by a wedding party at the club.

“What we saw was Trump be so lax in security that he was having a sensitive meeting regarding a potential war topic where non-U.S. government personnel could observe and photograph,” said Mark Zaid, a lawyer who specializes in national security cases. “It would have been easy for someone to also have had a device that heard and recorded what Trump was saying as well.”

The White House press secretary at the time of the Abe visit, Sean Spicer, told reporters afterward that Trump had been briefed about the North Korean launch in a secure room at Mar-a-Lago. He played down the scene on the patio.

“At that time, apparently there was a photo taken, which everyone jumped to nefarious conclusions about what may or may not be discussed. There was simply a discussion about press logistics, where to host the event,” he said.

It was in the secure room at Mar-a-Lago where Trump decided to launch airstrikes against Syria for the use of chemical weapons in April 2017.

The decision made, Trump repaired to dinner with visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping. Over a dessert of chocolate cake, Trump informed Xi about the airstrikes.

In 2019, a Chinese woman who passed security checkpoints at the club carrying a thumb drive coded with “malicious” software was arrested for entering a restricted property and making false statements to officials, authorities said at the time.

Then-White House chief of staff John Kelly launched an effort to try to limit who had access to Trump at Mar-a-Lago, but the effort fizzled when Trump refused to cooperate, aides said at the time.

(The story adds dropped word “been” in paragraph 16.)

(Reporting By Steve Holland and Karen Freifeld; Editing by Heather Timmons, William Mallard and Daniel Wallis)

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GARDNERVILLE, Nev. (AP) — Standing in front of 1,500 Republicans at a rural ranch backdropped by the Sierra Nevada mountains, Nevada’s Republican governor candidate Joe Lombardo referenced the “elephant in the room” without naming him.

The second-place finisher in the gubernatorial primary, Reno attorney Joey Gilbert, has baselessly claimed the mathematical counting was off and has continued to attack Lombardo. Lombardo to this point hasn’t addressed Gilbert directly, who requested a statewide recount of the results and later filed a lawsuit that was thrown out last week. He didn’t say Gilbert’s name on Saturday either, but acknowledged “we haven’t come together” since the primary.

“No matter who you voted for, we’ve got to get past that,” he said.

At the 7th annual Basque Fry, Republican heavyweights were eager to unite against incumbent Democrats at what has become a yearly tradition held in rural Douglas County. The event, which includes live music, an inflatable rodeo ride and Basque cuisine, is modeled after Adam Laxalt’s grandfather and former Nevada governor Paul Laxalt’s cookouts. The elder Laxalt was the son of Basque immigrants, and Adam now hosts the event with the Morning in Nevada PAC.

National and state politicians fired up the crowd with a message of urgency 80 days before midterm elections that will decide which party controls both the State House in Carson City and Congress in Washington D.C. Speaking to reporters before he took the state, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz called Laxalt’s race “the single best pickup opportunity for Republicans.”

“Part of the reason is that Adam managed to unify the Republican Party early,” Cruz said. “There are all sorts of different slices and flavors of Republicans state by state. And one of the challenges we have in some of the other states is we have candidates who came through pretty rocky primaries, where there’s still some bruised feelings.”

Some speakers referenced the new IRS agents included in the Inflation Reduction Act as an example of government overreach, though the amount of employees hired from the IRA was often skewed. Others urged attendees to do even more than they had in campaigning and to not take the “Red Wave” for granted.

Several speakers, including Cruz and Laxalt, condemned the search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. Laxalt called it an example of “weaponizing the FBI” — a rally cry that many Republican lawmakers have made in the past week to tap into voter outrage.

The main theme centered on unity in often razor-thin races.

“If we lose in Nevada, we lose everything,” said conservative author and commentator Kurt Schlichter, who added he was optimistic for the state after seeing Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s win in Virginia last November.

Behind the long tents around the stage was a set of smaller tents akin to a farmers market, selling merchandise and offering pamphlets for conservative cause: A “Save our Douglas Schools” tent for county board trustee nominees; Power2Parent tent which advocates for school choice and against sex education; merchandise stands with cowboy hats that say “Trump Won” and “Texans for Trump,” alongside “Not my dictator” shirts featuring Joe Biden with a photoshopped Hitler mustache.

Some politicians walked around the tents, interacting with supporters.

The campaign of U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto sent out a statement on Saturday about the event, calling Laxalt the “face of the Big Lie, a reference to when Laxalt spearheaded in Trump’s 2020 Nevada campaign and ensuing legal challenges to the vote-counting process.

“Laxalt is willing to break the rules, promising to file early lawsuits to help him gain power, because he’s only out for himself, not Nevada,” said spokesperson Josh Marcus-Blank.

Alongside Cruz, headliners included Schlichter, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, and Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, among others.

Noem, who gained notoriety among Republicans for bucking federal mandates in the throes of the pandemic, talked about her upbringing in South Dakota, her father’s influence on her before he died while she was in college and her philosophy for not adhering to COVID-19 shutdown during 2020. She spoke of the state’s zero corporate income tax and 4.5% sales tax.

“This can be your story,” she said. “Leadership has consequences.”

Laxalt was one of the last to take the stage and reflected on the Basque Fry a year ago, just days before he announced his Senate run. He said the left has since taken over media, big tech and “ruling elites.” He talked of surging crime in major cities and what he has often characterized as the border crisis. He called Masto Biden’s “rubber stamp” for signing the Inflation Reduction Act and repeated that “the entire US Senate will hinge on this race.”

“Whatever you’ve done to help with politics in the past, do more,” he told supporters. “We need you now more than ever.”

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Stern is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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(Reuters) – President Joe Biden said he will next week sign into law a $430 billion bill that is seen as the biggest climate package in U.S. history, designed to cut domestic greenhouse gas emissions and lower prescription drug prices.

“And while I plan to sign the Inflation Reduction Act into law next week, on September 6th we will hold a celebration at the White House in honor of this historic legislation,” Biden wrote on Twitter.

(Reporting by Costas Pitas in Los Angeles; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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(Reuters) – FBI agents in this week’s search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida home removed 11 sets of classified documents including some marked as top secret, the Justice Department said on Friday, while also disclosing it had probable cause to conduct the search based on possible Espionage Act violations.

The bombshell disclosures were made in a search warrant approved by a U.S. magistrate judge and accompanying documents released four days after agents searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach. The Espionage Act, one of three laws cited in the warrant application, dates to 1917 and makes it a crime to release information that could harm national security.

Trump, in a statement on his social media platform, said the records were “all declassified” and placed in “secure storage.”

“They didn’t need to ‘seize’ anything. They could have had it anytime they wanted without playing politics and breaking into Mar-a-Lago,” the Republican businessman-turned-politician said.

The search was carried out as part of a federal investigation into whether Trump illegally removed documents when he left office in January 2021 after losing the presidential election two months earlier to Democrat Joe Biden.

Although the FBI on Monday carted away material labeled as classified, the three laws cited as the basis for the warrant make it a crime to mishandle government records, regardless of whether they are classified. As such, Trump’s claims that he declassified the documents would have no bearing on the potential legal violations at issue.

FBI agents took more than 30 items including more than 20 boxes, binders of photos, a handwritten note and the executive grant of clemency for Trump’s ally and longtime adviser Roger Stone, a list of items removed showed. Also included in the list was information about the “President of France.”

The warrant showed that FBI agents were asked to search a room called “the 45 Office” – Trump was the 45th U.S. president – as well as all other rooms and structures or buildings on the estate used by Trump or his staff where boxes or documents could be stored.

The Justice Department said in the warrant application approved by U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart that it had probable cause to believe violations of the Espionage Act had occurred at Trump’s home.

That law was initially enacted to combat spying. Prosecutions under it were relatively uncommon until the Justice Department ramped up its use under both Trump and his predecessor Barack Obama to go after leakers of national security information, including leaks to the news media.

The law’s section cited as the basis for the warrant prohibits unauthorized possession of national defense information. It did not spell out the details about why investigators have reason to believe such a violation occurred.

The Justice Department has used the Espionage Act in high-profile cases in recent years including former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, former military intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

The application also cited probable cause of possible violations of two other statutes that make it illegal to conceal or destroy official U.S. documents.

LEVELS OF CLASSIFICATION

There are three primary levels of classification for sensitive government materials: Top secret, secret and confidential.

“Top secret” is the highest level, reserved for the most closely held U.S. national security information. Such documents usually are kept in special government facilities because disclosure could gravely damage national security.

FBI agents on Monday collected four sets of top secret documents, three sets of secret documents and three sets of confidential documents, it was disclosed on Friday. Agents were revealed to have collected a set of documents labeled “classified/TS/SCI documents,” a reference to top secret and sensitive compartmented material.

Trump has not been charged with any wrongdoing. It remained unclear whether any charges would be brought.

AN ESCALATION

Monday’s search marked a significant escalation in one of the many federal and state investigations he is facing from his time in office and in private business, including a separate one by the Justice Department into a failed bid by Trump’s allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election by submitting phony slates of electors.

Trump on Wednesday declined to answer questions during an appearance before New York state’s attorney general in a civil investigation into his family’s business practices, citing his constitutional right against self-incrimination.

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday announced that the department asked Reinhart to unseal the warrant. This followed Trump’s claim that the search was political retribution and a suggestion by him, without evidence, that the FBI may have planted evidence against him.

Legal experts said Trump’s claim that he had declassified the materials would not be a useful defense should he ever face charges.

“The statute does not even strictly require even that the information be classified so long as it is relating to the national defense,” Northwestern University law professor Heidi Kitrosser said, referring to the Espionage Act.

The investigation into Trump’s removal of records started this year after the National Archives and Records Administration, an agency charged with safeguarding presidential records that belong to the public, made a referral to the Justice Department.

Republican House of Representatives Intelligence Committee members on Friday called on Garland and FBI Director Chris Wray to release the affidavit underpinning the warrant, saying the public needs to know.

“Because many other options were available to them, we’re very concerned of the method that was used in raiding Mar-a-Lago,” Representative Michael Turner, the committee’s top Republican, told reporters.

If the affidavit remains sealed, “it will still leave many unanswered questions,” Turner added.

The Justice Department’s request to unseal the warrant did not include a request to unseal the accompanying affidavit, nor has Trump’s legal team publicly made such a motion.

Since Monday’s search, the department has faced fierce criticism and online threats, which Garland have condemned. Trump supporters and some Republicans in Washington have accused Democrats of weaponizing the federal bureaucracy to target him even as he mulls another run for the presidency in 2024.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington; additional reporting by Karen Freifeld and Luc Cohen in New York, Jacqueline Thomsen and David Morgan in Washington and Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; Editing by Will Dunham, Ross Colvin, Jonathan Oatis and Howard Goller)

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By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The $430 billion climate change, healthcare and tax bill that passed the U.S. Congress on Friday aims to help reduce the carbon emissions that drive climate change and lower medical costs for older Americans.

President Joe Biden’s Democrats hope the bill, now passed by both houses of Congress, will boost their chances in the Nov. 8 midterm elections, when Republicans are favored to recapture the majority in at least one chamber of Congress.

The package, called the Inflation Reduction Act, is a dramatically scaled-back version of a prior bill backed by Biden that was blocked by maverick Senate Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema as too expensive.

The bill will go to Biden to be signed into law.

“Today is really a glorious day for us. We send to the president’s desk a monumental bill that will be truly for the people,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the chamber’s top Democrat, told reporters on Friday ahead of the vote.

Republicans blasted the bill as a spending “wish list” that they argued would hurt an economy weighed down by inflation, saying it would kill jobs, raise energy costs and undermine growth at a time when the economy is facing a potential recession.

“The Democrats’ most recent reckless tax and spending spree suffers from a serious case of policy whiplash,” said Republican Senator Chuck Grassley. “The last thing businesses and families need right now are tax hikes and a rash of poorly vetted policies creating even more confusion and uncertainty in the economy.”

About half of Americans – some 49% – support the bill, including 69% of Democrats and 34% of Republicans, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted on Aug. 3 and 4. The most popular element of the bill is giving Medicare for older and disabled Americans the power to negotiate drug prices, which 71% of respondents support, including 68% of Republicans.

Economists, who say the legislation could help the Federal Reserve battle inflation, do not expect a sizeable impact on the economy in coming months.

CLIMATE FOCUS

With $370 billion in climate-focused spending, it was the most consequential climate change bill passed by Congress.

The bill offers businesses and families billions in incentives to encourage purchases of electric vehicles and energy-efficient appliances, as well as to spur new investments in wind and solar power that would double the amount of new, clean electricity-generating capacity coming online in the United States by 2024, according to modeling by the Repeat Project at Princeton University.

That would help put the United States on course to meet its pledge to slash its greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 below 2005 levels, made at last year’s Glasgow climate summit.

While environmental groups largely embraced the bill, they noted that compromises secured by Manchin, who represents coal-producing West Virginia, would prolong U.S. use of fossil fuels.

Those provisions include rules that would only allow the federal government to authorize new wind and solar energy developments on federal land when it is also auctioning rights to drill for oil and natural gas.

DRUG COSTS

The legislation would lower drug costs for the government, employers and patients, said Juliette Cubanski, deputy director of the Medicare program at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

    “Perhaps the biggest effect would be for people with prescription drug coverage through Medicare,” she said.

    A key change is the provision allowing the federal Medicare health plan to negotiate lower prescription drug prices.

    Negotiated prices for 10 of the costliest drugs for Medicare would apply starting in 2026, with that number rising until it caps at 20 a year in 2029.

    The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates Medicare would save $101.8 billion over 10 years by negotiating drug prices.

    The provision also introduces a $2,000 annual cap on out-of-pocket costs for the elderly through the Medicare program.

The pharmaceutical industry says price negotiation will stifle innovation.

TAX PROVISIONS

The bill also imposes a new excise tax on stock buybacks, a late change after Sinema raised objections over another provision that would have imposed new levies on carried interest, currently a tax loophole for hedge fund and private equity financiers. The provision was dropped.

The excise tax is expected to raise an additional $70 billion in tax revenue per year, lawmakers said. That is more than the carried interest provision had been forecast to raise.

A report by the Congressional Budget Office released prior to that last change estimated the measure would reduce the federal deficit by a net $101.5 billion over the next decade.

That was about one-third of the $300 billion in deficit reduction predicted by Senate Democrats, but excluded a projected $204 billion revenue gain from increased Internal Revenue Service enforcement. The Congressional Budget Office has not released a report on the final version of the bill.

(Reporting by David Morgan, additional reporting by Valerie Volcovici and Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Scott Malone, Jonathan Oatis and Howard Goller)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans in Congress who are relying on Donald Trump to excite voters in the fall elections are not only defending the former president against the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago home but politically capitalizing on it with grave and potentially dangerous rhetoric against the nation’s justice system.

The party that once stood staunchly for law-and-order has dramatically reversed course, stirring up opposition to the FBI and tapping into political grievances and far-right conspiracies that fed the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

It’s all part of the GOP’s election year strategy to harness voter outrage over the unprecedented search, quickly and unequivocally set in motion as Trump hosted a dozen Republicans for dinner of steak and scallops at his private Bedminster club the day after the FBI action.

One Republican at the table, Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas, a former sheriff, said he told the former president “loud and clear” that it’s time to protect himself politically by declaring his 2024 campaign for the presidency.

“Mr. President, I said, the American people, your supporters, are concerned with this corrupt DOJ and the FBI.”

“If I were you, sir, announce you’re running for president,” Nehls recalled telling Trump. “Take that doubt, take that anxiety away from the people that want you to be our 47th president.”

The escalating rhetoric comes amid stark warnings of violence against law enforcement, including the Ohio police shooting Thursday of an armed man clad in body armor who tried to breach the FBI’s Cincinnati office and engaged in an hours-long standoff. The day before, FBI Director Christopher Wray had called the threats to agents and DOJ “deplorable.” The FBI has warned its agents to take precautions, citing an increase in social media threats to bureau personnel and facilities. In some extreme cases, GOP lawmakers and others are demanding the FBI be dismantled and defunded.

It’s all coming at a time of blistering attacks on the nation’s civic institutions that experts say is worrisome, if not dangerous, for the future of U.S. democracy. With no branch of government unscathed, the discord risks sowing distrust in the White House, the Congress and the Supreme Court. It has kept security tight in Washington, limiting public access to the government.

“All of this rhetoric is being thrown around without any consideration for possible consequences,” said Frank Montoya Jr., a retired FBI special agent who led the bureau’s field offices in Seattle and Honolulu.

“All that does is stir up that minority within the base that aren’t satisfied with just words, they actually want to act it out.”

Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, said, “The vitriol coming from extremists, white supremacists and others, has been overwhelming,” pointing to rhetoric from Trump’s former campaign manager Steve Bannon and others warning of assassinations or calling for civil war.

“We usually expect that from these quarters, but the same kind of rhetoric is coming from prominent Republicans and Trump allies,” she said by email. “These comments coming from Republicans are really worrying as they are mainstreaming violent rhetoric.”

Asked Friday at the Capitol about the responsibility leaders have to tone down the rhetoric and keep the nation calm during times of uncertainty and distress, House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy demurred — and blamed Attorney General Merrick Garland.

“I think the attorney general has a real problem here,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy, who is in line to become speaker if his party wins House control, revived Republican concerns that Trump is being treated unfairly, as the first former president to have his home searched by the FBI, and he criticized the attorney general for delivering only a few minutes’ explanation during a press conference.

In McCarthy’s view, it was Garland, not his own party’s rhetoric, that was dividing the nation.

“Why would you pause and not talk to the American public, knowing where the American public is at, that he is just inflaming the public, and why would you only speak for a few moments?” McCarthy said. “So I think the attorney general has a lot of explaining to do.”

Republicans believe the Justice Department has been overly tough on Trump going back to the Russia investigation into allegations the president was colluding with a foreign entity, including when he called on Russia to release emails it had stolen from the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 presidential election.

The Republicans contrast the FBI search of Trump’s private club and residence with its treatment of Hillary Clinton, who was investigated for using a private email server in violation of government rules during her time as secretary of state — an offense the led to long chants of “Lock her up!” during Trump rallies.

The No. 3 House Republican, Rep. Elise Stefanik, claimed without evidence the Biden administration was “weaponizing” the Justice Department against Trump, a top potential 2024 rival for the White House.

She joined fellow House Republicans on the Intelligence Committee on Friday in demanding information, and vowed if their party wins control in the November election they will find out what happened.

“The House Republican majority will leave no stone unturned when it comes to transparency and accountability into the brazen politicization of Joe Biden’s Department of Justice and FBI targeting their political opponents,” Stefanik said.

Congressional Republicans have said their office phone lines are ringing from constituents outraged over the raid and they said they’ve never seen their colleagues more fired up to fight back — all the way to the November midterm elections.

Rep. Jim Banks, the Indiana Republican who organized the dinner with Trump, said they encouraged the former president to “kick off the campaign now” to seize the moment.

Banks said Trump will be a “big part” of the House Republicans’ campaign to win back the House majority.

House lawmakers returned to session Friday to vote, walking through metal detectors to screen against firearms, a legacy of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. Lawmakers had a security briefing earlier this week to address ongoing threats against lawmakers.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday that Trump’s role inciting the insurrection at the Capitol was sufficient cause to have concerns about inflammatory political rhetoric.

“You would think there’s an adult in the Republican room who would say, ‘Just calm down and see what the facts are and let’s go for that,’” Pelosi said, “instead of again instigating assaults on law enforcement.”

One republican, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, a former FBI agent, called on lawmakers to cool it.

“I don’t think any of this is okay,” Fitzpatrick told reporters.

“We’re the world’s oldest democracy, and that can go away very quickly,” he said. “As our adversaries have said so many times: The only way you defeat America, you’re never going to beat America from the outside, ever. The only way you beat the world’s greatest democracy is from within — turning American on American.”

He said, “So it’s incumbent upon everybody to act in a way that’s becoming of the office they hold — and that’s not casting judgment on anything until you know all the facts.”

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Associated Press writers Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston, Michelle Price in New York and videojournalist Nathan Ellgren contributed to this report.

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(Reuters) – FBI agents who searched former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida this week removed 11 sets of classified documents including some marked as top secret, the U.S. Justice Department said on Friday while also disclosing it has probable cause to believe he violated the Espionage Act.

The bombshell disclosures were made in legal documents released four days after FBI agents carried out the search of Trump’s residence based on a warrant approved by a federal magistrate judge.

The Justice Department told U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart in its warrant application that it had probable cause to believe that Trump violated the Espionage Act, a federal law that prohibits the possession or transmission of national defense information.

The list of documents is contained in a seven-page document that also includes the warrant to search the premises that was granted to the FBI by U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, the newspaper said. The list did not provide any more details about the substance of the documents, it said.

The reported revelations that Trump had documents labeled “top secret” could create major legal jeopardy for him.

“Top secret” is the highest level of classification, reserved for the country’s most closely held national security information. It is usually kept in special government facilities because its disclosure could cause grave damage to national security.

Numerous federal laws prohibit the mishandling of classified material, including the Espionage Act as well as another statute that prohibits the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material. Trump increased the penalties for this while he was in office, making it a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

Earlier on Friday, Trump denied a Washington Post report that the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago home was for possible classified materials related to nuclear weapons, writing on his social media account that the “nuclear weapons issue is a hoax.”

Reuters could not immediately confirm the Washington Post report. Attorney General Merrick Garland has declined to publicly detail the nature of the investigation.

Monday’s search of Trump’s home marked a significant escalation in one of the many federal and state investigations he is facing from his time in office and in private business, including a separate one by the Justice Department into a failed bid by Trump’s allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election by submitting phony slates of electors.

Garland on Thursday announced that the department had asked Reinhart to unseal the warrant that authorized the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. This followed a claim by Trump that the search was political retribution and a suggestion by him, without evidence, that the FBI may have planted evidence against him.

Trump’s attorneys on Friday afternoon signaled they will not object to having the search warrant for his Florida residence unsealed to the public, the Justice Department said in a court filing, indicating the unsealing could come shortly.

Reinhart had imposed a 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT) deadline for prosecutors to let him know if Trump’s legal team will oppose the unsealing of the warrant.

‘RELEASE THE DOCUMENTS’

Late on Thursday, Trump released a statement on social media saying he did not intend to oppose its release.

“Release the Documents Now!” Trump wrote.

The investigation into Trump’s removal of records started this year, after the National Archives and Records Administration, an agency charged with safeguarding presidential records that belong to the public, made a referral to the department.

On Friday, Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee called on Garland and FBI Director Chris Wray to release the affidavit underpinning the warrant, saying the public needs to know.

“Because many other options were available to them, we’re very concerned of the method that was used in raiding Mar-a-Lago,” Representative Michael Turner, the committee’s top Republican, told reporters.

If the affidavit remains sealed, “it will still leave many unanswered questions,” Turner added.

In February, Archivist of the United States David Ferriero told House lawmakers that his agency had been in communication with Trump throughout 2021 about the return of 15 boxes of records. He eventually returned them in January 2022.

At the time, the National Archives was still conducting an inventory, but noted some of the boxes contained items “marked as classified national security information.” Trump previously confirmed that he had agreed to return certain records to the Archives, calling it “an ordinary and routine process.” He also claimed the Archives “did not ‘find’ anything.”

Since Monday’s search, the Justice Department has faced fierce criticism and online threats, which Garland have condemned. Trump supporters and some of his fellow Republicans in Washington have accused Democrats of weaponizing the federal bureaucracy to target him even as he mulls another run for the presidency in 2024.

In another matter, Trump on Wednesday declined to answer questions during an appearance before New York state’s attorney general in a civil investigation into his family’s business practices, citing his constitutional right against self-incrimination.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington; additional reporting by David Morgan in Washington and Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; Editing by Will Dunham, Ross Colvin, Jonathan Oatis and Howard Goller)

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By Sarah N. Lynch

(Reuters) -FBI agents who searched former U.S. President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida on Monday removed 11 sets of classified documents including some marked as top secret, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing documents it reviewed.

Trump’s attorneys on Friday afternoon signaled they will not object to having the search warrant for his Florida residence unsealed to the public, the Justice Department said in a court filing, indicating the unsealing could come shortly.

The Justice Department told a federal judge in its warrant application that preceded the search that it has probable cause to believe that Trump violated the Espionage Act, a law which prohibits the possession or transmission of national defense information, the Journal reported.

FBI agents took around 20 boxes of items, binders of photos, a handwritten note and the executive grant of clemency for Mr. Trump’s ally Roger Stone, a list of items removed from the property shows, the Journal reported. Also included in the list was information about the “President of France,” it reported.

The list of documents is contained in a seven-page document that also includes the warrant to search the premises that was granted to the FBI by U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, the newspaper said. The list did not provide any more details about the substance of the documents, it said.

The reported revelations that Trump had documents labeled “top secret” could create major legal jeopardy for him.

“Top secret” is the highest level of classification, reserved for the country’s most closely held national security information. It is usually kept in special government facilities because its disclosure could cause grave damage to national security.

Numerous federal laws prohibit the mishandling of classified material, including the Espionage Act as well as another statute that prohibits the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material. Trump increased the penalties for this while he was in office, making it a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

Earlier on Friday, Trump denied a Washington Post report that the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago home was for possible classified materials related to nuclear weapons, writing on his social media account that the “nuclear weapons issue is a hoax.”

Reuters could not immediately confirm the Washington Post report. Attorney General Merrick Garland has declined to publicly detail the nature of the investigation.

Monday’s search of Trump’s home marked a significant escalation in one of the many federal and state investigations he is facing from his time in office and in private business, including a separate one by the Justice Department into a failed bid by Trump’s allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election by submitting phony slates of electors.

Garland on Thursday announced that the department had asked Reinhart to unseal the warrant that authorized the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. This followed a claim by Trump that the search was political retribution and a suggestion by him, without evidence, that the FBI may have planted evidence against him.

Reinhart had imposed a 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT) deadline for prosecutors to let him know if Trump’s legal team will oppose the unsealing of the warrant.

‘RELEASE THE DOCUMENTS’

Late on Thursday, Trump released a statement on social media saying he did not intend to oppose its release.

“Release the Documents Now!” Trump wrote.

The search and seizure warrant signed by Reinhart shows that FBI agents sought to search “the 45 Office,” as well as “all storage rooms and all other rooms or areas within the premises used or available to be used by (the former president) and his staff and in which boxes or documents could be stored, including all structures or buildings on the estate,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

The Journal added that FBI agents had collected four sets of top secret documents, three sets of secret documents and three sets of confidential documents.

The investigation into Trump’s removal of records started this year, after the National Archives and Records Administration, an agency charged with safeguarding presidential records that belong to the public, made a referral to the department.

On Friday, Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee called on Garland and FBI Director Chris Wray to release the affidavit underpinning the warrant, saying the public needs to know.

“Because many other options were available to them, we’re very concerned of the method that was used in raiding Mar-a-Lago,” Representative Michael Turner, the committee’s top Republican, told reporters.

If the affidavit remains sealed, “it will still leave many unanswered questions,” Turner added.

In February, Archivist of the United States David Ferriero told House lawmakers that his agency had been in communication with Trump throughout 2021 about the return of 15 boxes of records. He eventually returned them in January 2022.

At the time, the National Archives was still conducting an inventory, but noted some of the boxes contained items “marked as classified national security information.” Trump previously confirmed that he had agreed to return certain records to the Archives, calling it “an ordinary and routine process.” He also claimed the Archives “did not ‘find’ anything.”

Since Monday’s search, the Justice Department has faced fierce criticism and online threats, which Garland have condemned. Trump supporters and some of his fellow Republicans in Washington have accused Democrats of weaponizing the federal bureaucracy to target him even as he mulls another run for the presidency in 2024.

In another matter, Trump on Wednesday declined to answer questions during an appearance before New York state’s attorney general in a civil investigation into his family’s business practices, citing his constitutional right against self-incrimination.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington; additional reporting by David Morgan in Washington and Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; Editing by Will Dunham, Ross Colvin, Jonathan Oatis and Howard Goller)

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By Jarrett Renshaw

CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden plans to travel across the country to tout a series of recent legislative victories on climate change, gun control and drug pricing as a win for Americans and a defeat for special interests, White House officials said on Thursday.

Biden, whose public approval rating rose this week to its highest since early June, plans to use those victories to rally support for Democrats ahead of Nov. 8 midterm elections, White House officials Kate Bedingfield and Anita Dunn wrote in a memo. Republicans hope to take control of the U.S. Congress in November.

The U.S. Senate this week approved a Biden-backed measure to fight climate change, lower drug prices and raise some corporate taxes. The bill, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, is expected to win approval from the House of Representatives on Friday.

After signing the measure into law, Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Cabinet officials will tell Americans throughout the month of August: “The President and Congressional Democrats beat the special interests and delivered what was best for the American people,” the memo said.

“Every step of the way, Congressional Republicans sided with the special interests — pushing an extreme MAGA agenda that costs families,” it said, referring to former President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.

Republicans deny accusations they side with special interest groups representing corporations, while often accusing Democrats of the same. Republican leaders have criticized the $430 billion Inflation Reduction Act, saying it could undermine growth when the economy is in danger of falling into a recession.

(Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw; Writing by Rami Ayyub; Editing by Frances Kerry)

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