And we got a little nugget of information on that front today from another document that was also unsealed. It warned that releasing it could expose government witnesses who might then be endangered, might be reluctant to talk. But the justice department also argued that the affidavit contained sensitive information. And releasing it, the DOJ said, could undermine that investigation. An affidavit, in a way, is - as the justice department described it - a road map of their investigation. And that, of course, has not happened here. Normally, these affidavits aren't released unless and until someone is charged with a crime. And remember the justice department didn't want any of this affidavit made public. Attorneys familiar with these sorts of situations have been warning that this would likely be the case. Is it surprising that that much has been redacted? SHAPIRO: About half of this affidavit is blacked out - dozens of pages. But we do know from the property receipt that was released after the search that the FBI did recover more classified documents at Mar-a-Lago when it conducted its search there. Almost all of that section is blacked out. And there's a section in the affidavit that's devoted to explaining why there was probable cause to believe that documents with classified information and presidential records remained at Mar-a-Lago. We know the Justice Department was concerned about that, concerned that Trump hadn't turned over all of the government documents. LUCAS: Well, that's definitely one of the main things that we were looking for in the affidavit. Does the affidavit say what drove that decision? So that gives us some sense of why the justice department may have been so concerned that it took the unprecedented step of searching Mar-a-Lago. And the mishandling of that is part of what the FBI is investigating here. It's considered national defense information. Others related to signals intelligence, which would be the U.S. And some of the documents had select classification markings indicating that they relate to clandestine human sources - so spies.
The affidavit says there were 184 classified documents, including 92 that were at the secret level, 25 that were top secret. But also tossed in with them were a bunch of classified materials - everything just thrown together. The affidavit says there were news articles and printouts and photos and notes and personal records in those boxes. The affidavit tells us some of what we already knew - that the FBI's investigation began with a referral in February from the National Archives after the Archives recovered 15 boxes of materials from Mar-a-Lago in January. LUCAS: Well, this gives us the best peek behind the curtain yet of the FBI's investigation into how all these documents ended up at Mar-a-Lago after Trump left the White House. SHAPIRO: So what have you learned from the pages that are not blacked out? A redacted version of the document was released around noon today by a federal court in Florida, and NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas has been going through it.
The affidavit the FBI used to get a warrant to search former President Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago is now public.
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