The search warrant was approved by a federal judge on 5 August, three days before Monday's raid.

The court document gave law enforcement until 19 August to execute the search.

The warrant allowing FBI agents to search Mar-a-Lago has just been unsealed by a federal judge in Florida.

It comes after the justice department made the unusual move of asking to make public a warrant involved in an active criminal investigation.

Representatives for Trump have been making the legally debatable case since Monday that he had the authority as president to de-classify all of the recovered documents before he left office, and did so.

“Number one, it was all declassified. Number two, they didn’t need to 'seize’ anything,” he said on his social media platform, Truth Social, on Friday.

“They could have had it anytime they wanted without playing politics and breaking into Mar-a-Lago."

Legal experts have told US media it is unclear whether this argument would hold up in court.

Although the president does have the legal authority to declassify information, the procedure is unclear.

Supporters of Trump say he could simply say out loud that documents are declassified. Others argue that a more formal process is necessary.

Here's how this investigation has developed over the past few months:

• January 2022 - The National Archives retrieves 15 boxes of White House records from Mar-a-Lago, and says some of the documents it received at the end of Trump administration had been torn up
• February - Reports emerge that classified files were found in the Mar-a-Lago cache and National Archives has asked Department of Justice (DoJ) to investigate
• April - US media report the FBI has begun a preliminary investigation into how apparently classified material ended up at Mar-a-Lago
• 3 June - A senior DoJ official and three FBI agents travel to Mar-a-Lago to review items in a basement and Trump drops by to say hello, according to reports
• 8 June - Federal investigators reportedly write to a Trump aide to ask that a stronger lock be used to secure the room storing the items in question. Trump says that request was quickly fulfilled
• 22 June - The Trump Organization reportedly receives a DoJ summons for CCTV footage from Mar-a-Lago
• 8 August - Dozens of agents execute a search warrant of Mar-a-Lago, removing up to 20 boxes from the property
• 11 August - The DoJ asks a court to make the warrant public. Trump, who could have released his copy of the warrant at any time, does not object

We already know unofficially that the raid is connected to an investigation into whether the former president removed classified records and sensitive material from the White House.

The publication of the warrant does not include the evidence given that led to the search.

According to some reports in US media, a mole in the Trump team had helped the FBI identify the location of the allegedly mishandled documents.

According to the Washington Post, citing anonymous sources on Thursday night, documents relating to nuclear weapons were among the items FBI agents were seeking.

The sources did not tell the newspaper whether the information involved US weapons or some other nation's.

OK, here's the state of play.

A federal judge is deciding as soon as Friday whether to unseal the warrant that allowed the FBI to search former US President Donald Trump's estate on Monday.

Reports are emerging in the last few minutes that the FBI left Mar-a-Lago with 11 boxes of sensitive documents, some marked classified and top secret.

One box that was seized had a label on it intriguingly saying it was about the "President of France".

Another box contained the letter that Trump wrote granting legal clemency to his longtime friend and ally Roger Stone.

The confirmation of what was taken was revealed in a receipt that the FBI left after serving their warrant, giving a breakdown of what they had seized.