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The release Friday of the warrant and property receipt from the unprecedented FBI search for documents at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate seems to have done little to calm the former president or his supporters.

Some are still calling it a political witch hunt, with some baselessly saying the FBI may have planted evidence. Trump even falsely claimed former President Obama mishandled presidential documents until the National Archives and Records Administration stated that it wasn’t true.

While pro-Trump crowds protested peacefully in front of Mar-a-Lago after news of the search was made public by the former president Monday night, Tuesday and Saturday (thank you to the Palm Beach Police and Fire-Rescue departments for helping to maintain public safety), the vitriolic rhetoric coming from his supporters has already proven to be dangerous.

On Thursday, a gunman who posted calls on social media calling for FBI agents to be killed attempted to gain entry to the agency’s Cincinnati field office. The man, who was armed with an AR-15-style rifle and a nail gun, was killed in a shootout with police.

Political leanings aside, the receipt of items taken in the search includes some disturbing revelations: Various classified, secret and top-secret documents, some with the highest rank of classification that can be given.

Among the items taken from Mar-a-Lago: « 2A – Various classified/TS/SCI documents »; « 10A – Miscellaneous Secret Documents »; « 11A – Miscellaneous Top Secret Documents »; 13A – Miscellaneous Top Secret Documents »;  »14-A – Miscellaneous Confidential Documents »; « 15A – Miscellaneous Secret Documents »; « 19A – Confidential Document »; « 23A – Miscellaneous Secret Documents »; « 25A – Miscellaneous Confidential Documents »; 26A – Miscellaneous Top Secret Documents »; and « 28A – Miscellaneous Top Secret Documents. »

The list is staggering.

What were these documents doing in Palm Beach in the first place? Why were they still there after the National Archives reached out to Trump and his team several times in 2021 looking for documents that legally should have been turned over when the former president left office?

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Yet even after representatives from the National Archives retrieved 15 boxes of classified materials in January from Mar-a-Lago, more documents still remained. Trump was issued a subpoena in May, and more boxes were retrieved from the estate in June. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Monday’s search was prompted by a tip that additional classified documents — even after the two previous removals — were still at the club.

Among the latest seized records were some marked “sensitive compartmented information,” a special category meant to protect the nation’s most important secrets. These are the kind of secrets that, if revealed publicly, could cause “exceptionally grave” damage to U.S. interests, according to the Associated Press.

The search warrant identifies three federal crimes that the Justice Department is considering as part of its investigation: violations of the Espionage Act, obstruction of justice and criminal handling of government records.

These are serious allegations and they should not be dismissed out of hand. These are documents that should have been reviewed only in a secure government facility, not at Trump’s estate.

Trump’s statement that the seized records were « all declassified » and that he would have turned them over if asked is nonsensical, considering that they shouldn’t have been brought to Mar-a-Lago in the first place and that he was asked and subpoenaed to return the documents on several occasions.

Ironically, it was Trump who signed the 2018 law that elevated the unauthorized removal and retention of classified government documents to a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison.

More irony: Many in the Republican Party who were shouting « lock her up, lock her up » in 2016 over Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information are the ones castigating the Department of Justice and FBI over the search.

Before the search warrant was unsealed, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy even threatened to investigate the department and Attorney General Merrick Garland if the GOP retakes the House in November. « Attorney General Garland, preserve your documents and clear your calendar, » McCarthy said.

Gov. Ron DeSantis echoed McCarthy before the unsealing, saying the search was “another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the regime’s political opponents. »

The execution of the search warrant and its release is unprecedented. But it is not known yet known whether the warrant was executed just to retrieve the records or as part of an ongoing criminal investigation. If it is the latter, it remains to be seen if charges will be filed.

For the Department of Justice to do its job fairly, everyone needs to do one thing right now: Calm down. The hyperbole is tearing us apart. The threats to law enforcement must stop now.

But what matters now are the details. And most of them are still to come.

Let’s take a breather and let the process play itself out. We’ll have answers soon enough.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: After FBI Mar-a-Lago search, let the Department of Justice do its job