WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Biden Administration’s Department of Justice released a detailed inventory on Friday of the documents seized from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resident in Florida earlier in August, including what appear to be numerous personal materials that may or may not be related to the scope of the FBI search warrant, but also dozens of documents and folders that are specifically designated as being “classified” and “top secret.”
The list was ordered to be released by the FBI by Florida federal Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who is slated to announce her decision whether or not to grant a request by Trump’s lawyers to appoint a “special master” to the case, which is an unbiased third party – typically a retired federal judge – that can examine the seized materials to determine if any of them are protected by executive privilege.
The new list released Friday comes after a less detailed list was released in July, and shows that in addition to “various classified/TS/SCI documents” there were more than 1,000 documents that were not deemed classified – but still considered property of the U.S. Government – as well as hundreds of news articles that had been printed out, and 18 items identified curiously as “Article of Clothing/Gift Item.”
The majority of the documents – both classified and non-classified – are the responsibility of the National Archives and Records Administration to properly store, as per the Presidential Records Act, and were not among the materials turned over by Trump representatives in January when 15 other boxes of documents and records were returned, some of which also contained classified material.
It is currently unknown why Trump remained in possession of these documents, although he has claimed – via his Truth Social platform – that he had “declassified” them, and that they were securely and safely stored at his Mar-a-Lago residence at the time they were seized.
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