Breitbart Stumbles Into Reporting Trump is Being Investigated Under Espionage Act: ‘Biggest Buried Lede in History’

Breitbart appeared to inadvertently report on Friday that former President Donald Trump is under investigation for potentially violating the Espionage Act.

The search warrant executed by the FBI on Monday to search Trump’s Florida mansion was leaked to Trump-friendly outlets on Friday like Breitbart, the Wall Street Journal, and Fox News.

Breitbart, the right website founded by Andrew Breitbart and once run by Steve Bannon, disseminated the contents of the warrant in updates and, seemingly without knowing it, revealed Trump is under investigation for violations related to the unlawful storing of national defense-related materials:

UPDATE 2:25 p.m. ET:

Attachment B to the warrant delineates the three statutes which agents are pursuing evidence under. They are: 18 U.S.C. § § 793, 2071, and 1519.

“18 USC 793 is the Espionage Act,” noted D.C. reporter Hugo Lowell on Twitter as the full impact of Breitbart’s reporting quickly became clear.

Lowe noted the warrant also disclosed Trump is under investigation for violating two other statutes as well:

18 USC 2071 — Concealment, removal or mutilation
18 USC 793 — Gathering, transmitting or losing defence information
18 USC 1519 — Destruction, alteration or falsification of records in Federal investigations

Breitbart tried to backtrack about 20 minutes later, adding another update calling the statutes listed in the warrant “technically irrelevant”:

All of this is technically irrelevant anyway because Trump–who as president has original and absolute declassification authority–said he declassified all of these documents. “Number one, it was all declassified,” Trump said on Truth Social moments ago. “Number two, they didn’t need to ‘seize’ anything. They could have had it anytime they wanted without playing politics and breaking into Mar-a-Lago. It was in secured storage, with an additional lock put on as per their request.”

Adam Klasfeld, the managing editor of Law&Crime, noted that Breitbart’s reporting on the warrant amounted to the “biggest buried lede in history.”

“Breitbart runs an “Exclusive”—with a headline everyone learned yesterday,” he jested, adding:

Then, in an update some 15 paragraphs in, indicates one of the statutes on an attachment of the Mar-a-Lago warrant was the Espionage Act.

This biggest buried lede in history.

Breitbart runs an “Exclusive”—with a headline everyone learned yesterday.

Then, in an update some 15 paragraphs in, indicates one of the statutes on an attachment of the Mar-a-Lago warrant was the Espionage Act. https://t.co/rOUVpjm5Cc pic.twitter.com/TRyKBNof5n

— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) August 12, 2022

The documents surrounding the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago are expected to be fully unsealed later on Friday after Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday announced the Justice Department would file a motion to unseal the warrant and other information. The move to unseal the warrant came amid an outcry on the right calling the FBI search of Trump’s residence “politically motivated” and “weaponization” of the FBI.