Nearly three weeks after FBI agents descended on former US president Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, a Florida judge has unsealed parts of the affidavit underpinning the search for classified documents.
The 38 pages, released on Friday afternoon local time, are heavily redacted but reveal key details of the US Department of Justice's (DOJ) ongoing criminal investigation into the former president's potential mishandling of government secrets.
Eleven whole pages of the affidavit are entirely blacked out, but what remains is a timeline of the tussle over hundreds of highly classified documents, which ultimately led to the court-authorised search of Mr Trump's sprawling Palm Beach property.
In an emphatic statement, he dismissed the search and subsequent release of the warrant, itemised list of seized items, and affidavit as "public relations subterfuge" by federal law enforcement agencies.
Here's what we learned.
The criminal investigation and the moving trucks that tipped it off
The first line of the affidavit confirmed the DOJ is conducting a criminal investigation related to "classified information", triggered by a referral from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in February 2022.
It was submitted by an FBI special agent, trained in counterintelligence and espionage investigations, whose identity was concealed.
"The government is conducting a criminal investigation concerning the improper removal and storage of classified information in unauthorised spaces, as well as the unlawful concealment or removal of government records," the agent wrote.
The year-long back-and-forth between NARA and Trump's lawyers over records taken from the White House at the end of his administration has been widely reported.
But the affidavit named several of the events that led the nation's record keeper to turn to its top law enforcement body for help.
On January 18, 2021, CBS Miami reported moving trucks had been spotted dropping boxes off at Mar-a-Lago.
On the same date a year later, NARA successfully recovered 15 boxes of records from the office of the former president on the property.
It's not clear if they were the same boxes, but a reference to the news article in the affidavit may hint it was what tipped the archives off.
Highly sensitive documents were 'intermingled' with personal records
According to NARA, those boxes handed over earlier this year were found to contain "highly classified documents intermingled with other records".
Among newspapers, magazines, news clippings, photos, letters and personal and records were "a lot of classified records," the agent wrote.
"Of most significant concern was that highly classified records were unfoldered, intermixed with other records, and otherwise unproperly [sic] identified," he added.
Sarah Krissoff, a former assistant US attorney for the southern district of New York, said the discovery would have raised serious red flags.
"Everything here is unusual and unprecedented," she said.
"It was not only the fact that the documents were found in those boxes, but how they were found … particularly that those documents were seemingly casually intermingled among other documents."
By February 18 2022, the archivist of the United States was raising the alarm.
A letter to the relevant congressional committee stated: "NARA has identified items marked as classified national security information within the boxes."
At least 184 unique documents bore classification markings, including 67 marked as CONFIDENTIAL, 92 marked as SECRET, and 25 marked as TOP SECRET, according to the affidavit.
The FBI also observed markings such as "HCS", which refers to a system designed to protect intelligence gathered from "clandestine human sources".
"Based on my training and experience, I know that documents classified at these levels typically contain NDI," the agent wrote, referring to National Defense Information.
The FBI had 'probable cause' to believe there were more documents at Mar-a-Lago
After the initial NARA referral, the FBI opened its criminal investigation to determine how the classified materials left the White House, then came to be stored at Mar-a-Lago.
Usually, such documents are held in special government facilities.
According to the affidavit, the investigation had "probable cause" to believe additional documents containing classified NDI or that were meant to retained by the government would be found at the premises.
The FBI also found probable cause "to believe that evidence of obstruction" would be found.
The federal judge who signed off on the search warrant ordered the document be unsealed due to the overwhelming public and historical interest case for doing so.
In an earlier court filing, Judge Bruce Reinhart confirmed he had seen the affidavit, and was convinced "evidence of multiple federal crimes" may be found at Mar-a-Lago.
He also approved the DOJ's "narrowly tailored" redactions, which were deemed necessary to protect witnesses and the ongoing investigation.
Parts of the document are blacked out due to safety and obstruction concerns
Large chunks of the affidavit, including the name of the FBI agent who submitted it, are redacted — meaning they have been blacked out.
Mr Trump and his allies have pointed to the redactions to argue the search of Mar-a-Lago was not justified.
"Judge Bruce Reinhart should NEVER have allowed the Break-In of my home," the former president said on his social media platform.
"WITCH HUNT!!!"
Mr Trump later sent out an email with a single image and the message: "They missed a page!"
Donald Trump Jr also mocked the redacted documents in a Tweet.
But in a separate filing, the DOJ argued those sections needed to stay sealed for two main reasons: to protect the safety of "a significant number" of civilian witnesses and law enforcement personnel, and to safeguard the integrity of the investigation.
"If witnesses' identities are exposed, they could be subjected to harms including retaliation, intimidation, or harassment, and even threats to their physical safety," it said.
It added that people could be quickly identified over social media, even if they were not named, and that it would "almost certainly" chill other potential witnesses from coming forward.
The DOJ also noted that FBI agents already publicly identified as being connected to the investigation had repeatedly been threatened with violence.
The other main reason for the redactions was to avoid providing what it described as an "investigation roadmap" to anyone who might want to obstruct it.
"In short, the government has well-founded concerns that steps may be taken to frustrate or otherwise interfere with this investigation if facts in the affidavit were prematurely disclosed," it said.
The unnamed FBI agent went further in the affidavit itself, revealing the agency had "not yet identified all potential criminal confederates nor located all evidence related to its investigation".
"Premature disclosure of the contents of this affidavit … may severely jeopardize its effectiveness by allowing criminal parties an opportunity to flee, destroy evidence (stored electronically and otherwise), change patterns of behavior, and notify criminal confederates."
Were the documents declassified? And does it matter anyway?
A letter from Mr Trump's lawyers, sent to the DOJ in May and attached to the affidavit, defended the former president's conduct.
It said he had "readily and voluntarily" agreed to the transfer of boxes from Mar-a-Lago but that the "good faith" he had shown was not matched when details of the investigation were leaked.
The letter also argued the US president has "absolute authority" to declassify documents and warned any attempt to impose criminal liability over the documents "would implicate grave constitutional separation-of-powers issues".
Mr Trump has repeatedly asserted that all of the material taken from his property was declassified — an argument dismissed by many legal experts, who say the laws cited by the DOJ do not take classification status into account.
The affidavit's response to that matter is mostly redacted, however in a footnote it appears to make a similar case.
It states that the legislation referred to under the Espionage Act does not use the term 'classified information', but rather criminalises the unlawful retention of "information relating to the national defense".
Where to from here?
The redacted version of the affidavit does not offer any further clues as to whether, or when, charges might be laid.
But its public release — highly unusual at this stage of an investigation — provides new insights into the extent of, and some of the reasons behind, the DOJ's concerns.
It is not clear how long the investigation could take or what the DOJ's next steps might involve.
But Ms Krisoff believes it could be moving fairly quickly behind the scenes.
"There's no longer any semblance of privacy related to the investigation once they do the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago," she said.
"So I'm surmising that they're pretty far along in the investigation here, they have the witnesses secured, they have obtained the documents they need from any other sources.
"And that this was just sort of one further step in really building their case."
