ga and good evening, i m erin burnett. trump investigated for violating the espionage act. yes, that is just one of the crimes former president trump is under investigation for by the department of justice tonight. obstruction of justice and criminal handling of government records are also on the list. now just to be clear, when you hear the word espionage, you might say, wait, espionage? here s what it specifically relates to. i ll quote for you. information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the united states or to the advantage of any foreign nation. and as the warrant, the unsealed warrant now states, the property to be seized includes, and just reading here and you can see on your screen as well, information including communications in any form regarding the retrieval, storage or transmission of national defense information or classified material. and that is why the fbi searched mar-a-lago on monday. and we now also know what the fbi took
collection our government has. most typically electronic type of surveillance communications intercepts through, for example, the national security agency s activities or cia activities. so the fact that he had sci material out in the wild, so to speak, at risk is particularly stunning and particularly egregious. right. that s the secure compartmented information. so based on what you now know was taken, and i want to be clear, we know a lot because you ve got this list, but we don t know exactly nor obviously should we given the security designation what it pertains to or what the details are. but from what you know here, was the fbi search necessary? it seems to me that the results of the search as reflected even in the somewhat opaque receipt of property completely bear out the government s narrative to the magistrate that there was in fact sufficient probable cause