WASHINGTON (AP) — Along with highly classified government documents, the FBI agents who searched former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate found dozens of empty folders marked classified but with nothing inside and no explanation of what might have been there, according to a more detailed inventory of the seized material made public on Friday.
The agents also found more than 10,000 other government documents kept by Trump with no classification marked.
The inventory compiled by the Justice Department reveals in general terms the contents of 33 boxes and containers taken from Trump’s office and a storage room at Mar-a-Lago during the Aug. 8 search. Though the inventory does not describe the content of the documents, it shows the extent to which classified information — including material at the top-secret level — was stashed in boxes at the home and mixed among newspapers, magazines, clothing and other personal items.
And the empty folders raise the question of whether the government has recovered all of the classified papers that Trump kept after leaving the White House.
The inventory makes clear for the first time the volume of unclassified government documents at the home even though presidential records were to have been turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration. The Archives had tried unsuccessfully for months to secure their return from Trump and then contacted the FBI after locating classified information in a batch of 15 boxes it received in January.