Donald Trump Had 'More than 300' Classified Documents at Mar-a-Lago: Report

Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida. Inset: Donald Trump.Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty. Inset: Zach Gibson - Pool/Getty

Just weeks after theFBI searchedformer PresidentDonald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, new reports are detailing just how many classified documents may have been kept in the resort.

Roughly 150 of those classified documents, theTimesreports, werehanded over to the National Archivesin January — but Trump himself went through them before handing them over.

Elsewhere in its report, theTimesdetails how Trump fought the federal government’s attempts to retrieve the documents, reportedly telling his attorneys, “It’s not theirs, it’s mine.” According tothe Presidential Records Act— passed in response to the Nixon Watergate scandal — any documents accrued during a presidency belong to the federal government, not the president.

“As you are no doubt aware, NARA had ongoing communications with the former President’s representatives throughout 2021 about what appeared to be missing Presidential records, which resulted in the transfer of 15 boxes of records to NARA in January 2022,” National Archivist Debra Wall wrote in a May 10 letter to Trump’s attorney Evan Corcoran. “In its initial review of materials within those boxes, NARA identified items marked as classified national security information, up to the level of Top Secret and including Sensitive Compartmented Information and Special Access Program materials.”

According to theTimes, after reviewing security footage taken at Mar-a-Lago and interviewing aides, investigators were concerned some classified documents remained at the resort. So on Aug. 8, agents returned with a search warrant.

Some of those remaining documents were marked as top secret, which theWall Street Journalnotes should only be available in special government facilities.

The filing says that the government told Trump’s lawyers that “privileged and/or potentially privileged documents” were seized, but specifics of what exactly was taken have yet to be provided.

“Significantly, the Government has refused to provide President Trump withanyreason for the unprecedented, general search of his home,” the complaint says, noting Attorney General Merrick Garland’smotion to unseal the search warrant.

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Arguing that the documents seized were created when Trump was president, his lawyers state that they are “‘presumptively privileged’ until proven otherwise,” and a Special Master is the only one who can protect their “sanctity.”

source: people.com