Trump: FBI Photos of ‘Top Secret’ Documents Were a ‘Set Up’

Former President Donald Trump waves while walking to a vehicle outside of Trump Tower in New York on Aug. 10, 2022. Stringer/AFP via Getty Images

Former President Donald Trump said that a photo showing alleged top secret files that were scattered on the floor of Mar-a-Lago was a “set up” by the Department of Justice (DOF) and FBI.

In an interview with Indian broadcaster NDTV, Trump was asked about a DOJ court filing last week that showed documents and papers that were scattered on the floor. Some of them were labeled as classified or “TOP SECRET.”

“That they put there. It’s a set-up. It’s weaponization. And it’s inappropriate to do. It’s a bad thing for our country,” Trump said from his home in Bedminister, New Jersey, in an interview published Thursday.

The FBI raid targeting Mar-a-Lago “was a terrible thing,” he continued. “And frankly, that’s had a big impact on the population. I think it’s boomeranged, and very negatively, on them.”

The DOJ included the photo in a response to Trump’s request to obtain a special master—or a neutral, third party—to review documents that were taken from his home. The former president has maintained that he declassified those documents, pointing to an executive order he made in early 2021.

Federal Judge Aileen Cannon on Labor Day granted Trump’s request for a special master to review the records. In its counter-argument, DOJ lawyers said that a filter team had already looked at the documents taken from Mar-a-Lago, which Trump said included tax records, medical paperwork, passports, and other personal items.

Meanwhile, the DOJ also said that possibly privileged materials, including communications between Trump and his attorneys, were obtained during the search.

Order

Writing in her order, Cannon noted that the DOJ appears to have leaked some information about its case against Trump to media outlets. Without making specific reference to the leaks, Cannon said that those actions would cause harm to Trump.

“In addition to being deprived of potentially significant personal documents, which alone creates a real harm, Plaintiff faces an unquantifiable potential harm by way of improper disclosure of sensitive information to the public,” Cannon said in her 24-page order.

Documents seized during the Aug. 8 raid by the FBI of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla, in a photo released on Aug. 30, 2022. FBI via The Epoch Times

“Further, Plaintiff is at risk of suffering injury from the Government’s retention and potential use of privileged materials in the course of a process that, thus far, has been closed off to Plaintiff and that has raised at least some concerns as to its efficacy, even if inadvertently so,” she also wrote.

Since the Aug. 8 FBI search, there have been claims published in the Washington Post and other corporate news outlets claiming Trump had nuclear secrets or highly sensitive material at his Florida residence. Over the past weekend, the Post, citing “people familiar with the matter,” alleged that Trump possessed documents that detailed a foreign country’s nuclear and defense capabilities.

But in the DOJ’s affidavit and FBI search warrant, no mention of nuclear secrets or weapons were mentioned. The FBI and DOJ have also not made any public comments on the claims.

In categorically denying the Washington Post’s report, the former president wrote on Truth Social in mid-August the nuclear weapons claims are “a hoax” and similar to the “Russia, Russia, Russia” narrative that was pushed by mainstream outlets during his presidency.

The Epoch Times has contacted the DOJ for comment.