Unsealed Trump Affidavit 'Absolutely Damning,' Attorney Predicts Jail Time

The unsealing of the affidavit that led to the retrieval of what has been confirmed to be hundreds of documents from former President Donald Trump's Mar-A-Lago residence is "absolutely damning," according to one attorney.

The heavily-redacted affidavit containing multiple blacked-out pages of text, was unsealed Friday by Federal Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart. The affidavit, which was in support of a search warrant for the August 8 FBI search of Trump's home, revealed that the Department of Justice (DOJ) was initially alerted by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in February regarding "highly classified documents" contained within 15 boxes of materials Trump's office sent to NARA in January.

"I've now read the affidavit, and even redacted it is absolutely damning," tweeted attorney Norm Eisen, a legal analyst for CNN. "People are likely going to jail for this conduct."

National security attorney Bradley Moss tweeted that not only did NARA originally request the return of documents in early 2021 but that no evidence existed of said documents ever becoming declassified–and no future standing of declassification to the DOJ.

"The documents listed as TS/SCI encompassed FISA information, signals intelligence and human intelligence sources," Moss tweeted. "The Trump team was trying to argue for months Trump can't be held criminally liable. That argument went nowhere."

An additional tweet from Moss said that he beleived the information present within the redacted affidavit is enough to indict Trump.

"Even just the redacted portions of the affidavit are sufficient for my purposes to conclude Mr. Trump was in unauthorized possession of the properly marked classified records—that he was told he was not authorized to retain them, and that he continued to retain them (and apparently even worked to conceal them) despite the fact he was told he was not authorized to retain them," Moss told Newsweek via email. "That's the ball game."

Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti tweeted that the redacted information shows that Trump's attorney "does not assert or argue that Trump previously declassified documents or had a 'standing order' doing so." Mariotti added that Trump's attorney only said that the former president had the power to declassify documents and made "an argument that presidents can't be prosecuted for anything related to classified documents."

Trump wrote on Truth Social following the unsealing of the affidavit, arguing that the affidavit is "heavily redacted" and makes no mention of "nuclear."

"Judge Bruce Reinhart should NEVER have allowed the break-in of my home," Trump said. "He recused himself two months ago from one of my cases based on his animosity and hatred of your favorite President, me. What changed? Why hasn't he recused himself on this case? Obama must be very proud of him right now!"