Prosecutors detail items seized from Trump estate, including dozens of empty ‘classified’ folders

Agents who searched Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate recovered records with highly classified marking mixed in boxes with other personal items like books and clothing, according to a government inventory unsealed in a court filing Friday.

The more detailed description of items seized during the Aug. 8 search also shows dozens of empty folders with classified marking, and many labeled “return to staff secretary/military aide.”

The filing comes a day after a federal judge in West Palm Beach, Florida, heard arguments from the Justice Department and Trump’s legal team about potential restraints on the department’s access to the documents retrieved from Mar-a-Lago.

Trump’s legal team did not immediately respond to a request for comment

The items listed in the inventory appear to coincide with an earlier receipt provided to Trump’s legal team about boxes that were taken from Trump’s estate. The receipt described an order for clemency for Trump ally Roger Stone — who was convicted in 2019 on seven felony charges brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller — and information about the president of France. In the new inventory, those items are described as a document with a “secret” marking and another two documents with no classification markings.

The detailed inventory also shows that a raft of items marked as top secret were discovered in a leather bound box found in Trump’s office. These items were among those displayed in a photograph released by the Justice Department earlier in the week showing the documents containing some of the government’s most highly classified secrets.

The new inventory shows that along with those records marked classified in one box of documents recovered from Trump's estate were 99 press clippings, 69 government records without classification markings, 43 empty folders with “classified” banners and 28 empty folders marked “Return to Staff Secretary/Military Aide.”

DOJ and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence are leading a separate review of the documents’ classification, and ODNI has also started an assessment of potential risks to national security posed by the materials.