According to the search warrant that led to Monday's raid on Trump's Mar-A-Lago home, the FBI is looking into whether the former president violated three federal statutes.
The former President left Trump Tower in New York City.
An attachment to the search warrant the FBI used to raid Mar-A-Lago states investigators seized any property that was illegal.
The Espionage Act is a federal statute that deals with the possession of documents and materials related to national security.
The statute makes it a crime to copy, transmit, or have unauthorized possession of national security material, and also makes it a crime to move it from its proper place of custody.
The destruction of documents or materials with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence governmental matters or investigations can result in a prison sentence of up to 20 years.
There is a fine or prison sentence of up to three years if you are found guilty of violating the final statute.
Legal scholars believe that the issue of whether to disqualify anyone from holding public office if they violate the statute wouldn't be used to stop Trump from running for president again.
On Truth Social on Friday, Trump claimed that he can't be found guilty of handling sensitive documents because he declassified them. According to legal experts cited by NBC News, presidents have the power to broadly declassify materials, but they have to mark them as such before they can be viewed. An anonymous source who spoke with Trump about declassifying documents told NBC that he didn't care because he thought it was dumb.
After days of speculation as to the reasons and targets for the FBI's Monday raid on Mar-A-Lago, the federal search warrant and related documents were made public. The documents that Trump brought back to Mar-A-Lago with him from the White House were the subject of a raid. According to the search warrant, FBI investigators seized an additional 20 boxes of materials on Monday after a source tipped off federal agents that there were additional materials that weren't initially turned over.
The search warrant in the FBI's Trump Mar-A-Lago raid was not made public.
Mar-a-Lago documents were declassified. Experts don't know if that will hold up. NBC is a news organization.
The Explainer asked what charges might be brought against Trump for removing White House records. The story was reported by the Associated Press.
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