FBI agents who searched former US President Donald Trump’s home last month found empty folders marked confidential, according to a detailed inventory of seized material released Friday by the Justice Department.
The inventory reveals, in general terms, the contents of 33 boxes stolen from an office and a warehouse in Mar-a-Lago, during the raids carried out on August 8.
While the inventory does not describe any of the documents, it does show the extent to which classified information, including top secret material, was kept in boxes and containers mixed with newspapers, magazines, clothing and other personal items.
The Justice Department assessed that there was no secure space in the Trump mansion capable of keeping such sensitive government secrets and opened a criminal investigation focused on the retention of these documents.
The inventory shows that 43 folders labeled classified were found empty in a Trump office, as were 28 other folders labeled “Return to Secretary of Staff/Military Auxiliary.”
Empty folders of this nature were also found in a storage locker.
The inventory does not indicate why the folders are empty or what might have happened to the missing documents.
However, he points out that Justice Department officials described with concern the fact that the highly confidential information had been mixed with personal belongings of the former head of state.
US Judge Aileen Cannon ordered the more detailed inventory to be made public on Thursday, following a request from the Republican politician’s team.
An attorney for Trump, speaking at a hearing before the judge on Thursday, likened the dispute over such classified material to a dispute over overdue library books.
On August 8, FBI agents searched Trump’s property in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, removing dozens of boxes of classified documents, some marked not only top secret but also “compartmentalized confidential information,” according to a report from what was stolen.
The FBI operation was prompted by Trump’s possible violations of the Presidential Records Act, which requires all White House occupants to return presidential documents upon leaving office.
Source: TSF
