FBI agents found four dozen empty document folders marked "CLASSIFIED" during their raid last month of former President Donald Trump's residence at his Mar-a-Lago club, a newly unsealed court file revealed Friday.
Agents found 43 of those empty folders marked classified in Trump's office, according to the Department of Justice's inventory of the seized items, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
The remaining five empty folders with that marking were found in containers in a storage room.
The FBI also found another 42 empty folders marked "Return to Staff Secretary/Miliary [sic] Aide," during the Aug. 8 raid, which was authorized to search for government documents removed from the White House when Trump left office in Jan. 2021, the filing said.
Documents seized by FBI from Mar-a-Lago
Source: Department of Justice
Twenty-eight of those empty folders were found in Trump's office, while another 14 were in a storage room elsewhere, the document shows.
And FBI agents found more than 10,000 government documents and photographs without classification markings, the filing shows. Among those were hundreds of photos and news articles, along with gifts, clothing, and books.
The bombshell revelations raise the prospect that the DOJ has not yet recovered the documents that would have been in the empty folders.
The DOJ is investigating possible crimes related to the removal of those and other government documents from the White House when Trump left office in Jan. 2021.
By law, such records must be turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration.
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It was signed by Miami U.S. Attorney Juan Gonzalez, and Jay Bratt, the chief of the counterintelligence and export control section of the national security division of the Justice Department.
"The seized materials will continue to be used to further the government's investigation, and the investigative team will continue to use and evaluate the seized materials as it takes further investigative steps, such as through additional interviews and grand jury practice," that notice says.
"It is important to note, 'review' of the seized materials is not a single investigative step but an ongoing process in this active criminal investigation," the document says.
Trump's spokesman in a series of tweets about the inventory of the seized items again criticized the raid.
"The new 'detailed' inventory list only further proves that this unprecedented and unnecessary raid of President Trump's home was not some surgical, confined search and retrieval that the Biden administration claims, it was a SMASH AND GRAB," wrote the spokesman, Taylor Budowich.
"These document disputes should be resolved under the Presidential Records Act, which requires cooperation and negotiation by NARA [National Archives and Records Administration], not an armed FBI raid," Budowich added.
Trump in a lawsuit filed in late August asked Cannon to appoint an independent watchdog, known as a special master, to review the items seized in the search before the DOJ is allowed to continue using the documents in the investigation.
Trump's lawyers have said a special master could check to see if some documents would be prohibited from being used in the probe because they are protected by either attorney-client privilege or executive privilege.
The DOJ has opposed the appointment of a special master, saying that it would delay the investigation, and that Trump does not own the documents.
Cannon, during a court hearing in Florida on that dispute Thursday, said she will issue a ruling on the special master request in "due course."
Cannon, a Trump appointee, previously shared her "preliminary intent" to grant Trump's request for a special master. The judge suggested in Thursday's hearing that she is still considering that appointment, news outlets reported.
An aerial view of former U.S. President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home after Trump said that FBI agents raided it, in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S. August 15, 2022.
Marco Bello | Reuters
A federal judge in Florida told the Justice Department on Saturday to provide her with more specific information about the classified records removed from former President Donald Trump's Florida estate and said it was her "preliminary intent" to appoint a special master in the case.
The two-page order from U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon signals that she's inclined to grant a request from Trump's lawyers, who this week asked for the appointment of an independent special master to review the records taken from Mar-a-Lago and identify any that may be protected by executive privilege.
The judge scheduled a Thursday hearing to discuss the matter further. A special master is often a former judge.
Cannon also directed the Justice Department to file under seal with her more detailed descriptions of the material taken from Trump's property. The former president's lawyers have complained that investigators did not disclose enough information to them about what specific documents were removed when agents executed a search warrant on Aug. 8 to look for classified documents.
The special master appointment, if it happens, is unlikely to significantly affect the direction of the Justice Department investigation, though it's possible an outside review of the documents could slow the probe down.
The Department of Justice released a version of the document it used to convince a judge to issue a warrant to seize documents from former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence. The affidavit, which a judge ordered the Justice Department to release, lays out why the FBI felt there was probable cause that crimes had been committed.
Despite redactions, the affidavit includes many new details and clues about why the FBI and the National Archives worried about "a lot of classified records" mixed in with other things at Trump's house, which is also a private club and resort.
The first redaction in the document, on the first page, is the name of the FBI agent who wrote and signed this 32-page affidavit.
We also definitively see the FBI is conducting a criminal investigation, although it does not specifically name former President Donald Trump as the target, and that the National Archives referred the potentially illegal activity after retrieving 15 boxes of documents, which intermingled classified documents with other things from Trump in January.
The affidavit is redacted to shield the identities of witnesses, details about a federal grand jury, and to hide specifics about the ongoing investigation. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart ruled the redactions were "narrowly tailored to serve the Government’s legitimate interest in the integrity of the ongoing investigation."
The FBI was initially investigating the 15 boxes already turned over by Trump. They wanted to know how those boxes got to Mar-a-Lago, whether classified documents were stored improperly and whether people who should not have seen classified information saw these documents.
The FBI agent who signed the affidavit ****cites experience and training with counterintelligence and espionage investigations and the use and storage of sensitive information.
What’s not clear is what led the FBI to believe there were additional documents at Mar-a-Lago. CNN has reported that at some point the DOJ began to suspect the Trump team was not being truthful and a witness came forward.
The agent says this affidavit is not exhaustive of the facts known by the FBI. It simply establishes probable cause for the search. It also, conversely, does not allege a crime against Trump or anyone else. This is common boilerplate language often found in FBI affidavits.
Read 18 U.S. Code § 793 here. It concerns “gathering, transmitting or losing defense information.”
The system of classifying information as sensitive or classified is not set out in law. Rather, the rules are spelled out in a presidential executive order. The most recent update came during the Obama administration, with Executive Order 13526. Read it.
This page outlines some of the different classifications of information. Even though we get very little information about the specific nature of classified documents Trump had, we can infer from the inclusion of these definitions that the documents at Mar-a-Lago ranged from Top Secret -- requiring special storage -- to even more restrictive sub-classifications that required special access.
CNN’s Katie Bo Lillis laid out the various classifications here.
HUMINT involves human intelligence, and disclosing identities could put sources who provide information to the US at risk in foreign countries.
NOFORN is an important designation because it signifies information that is not supposed to be given to foreign governments or individuals without an OK from the agency that developed or obtained the intelligence.
Here we learn the sections of federal law and regulations that may have been violated.
The Code of Federal Regulations — or CFR — is published annually by federal agencies. 32 C.F.R Parts 2001 and 2003 are federal regulations from the National Archives related to the handling of classified national security information.
But the affidavit also cites Title 18 of the US Code — that’s federal law. 18 US § 1519 has to do with the “destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in Federal investigations and bankruptcy.” Read it.
18 US Code § 2071 has to do with the “concealment, removal, or mutilation generally” of federal documents or property. Read it.
The PRA is the Presidential Records Act, passed by Congress in the aftermath of Richard Nixon’s failed attempt to take presidential documents with him out of the White House after Watergate. For an explanation of why the American public, and not the former president, own Trump’s presidential documents, click here.
A good portion of what we have learned about this case, including the first news of the search itself, has come either from Trump’s own statements or disclosures by his allies.
We’re getting heavily into redactions here.
Here’s that CBS affiliate report. Remember, this is two days before President Joe Biden took office. The images of moving trucks at Mar-a-Lago were captured by news helicopters keeping watch on Trump’s soon-to-be permanent address.
Points 24-37 in the affidavit establish probable cause. Starting on this page we shift to “Provision of the Fifteen Boxes to NARA.”
An important date here. By early May 2021, a few months after Trump left office, the Archives had already established that it was missing documents covered under the Presidential Records Act and was told 12 boxes had been “found” and were ready for pick up at Mar-a-Lago. See a full timeline of what we know.
After the affidavit was released, Trump responded on Truth Social, calling it "a total public relations subterfuge by the FBI & DOJ.”
This is important. The FBI identified 184 classified documents in the 15 boxes given by Trump to the Archives. These included 92 documents classified SECRET and 25 documents classified TOP SECRET.
The documents have additional markings, such as NOFORN, and also handwritten notes by Trump.
“Based on my training and experience, I know that documents classified at these levels typically contain” national defense information, the affidavit says.
We have entered a new portion of the affidavit, which outlines that there was classified information in the 15 boxes of presidential records Trump turned over to the Archives in January 2022.
The Justice Department left unredacted Trump’s claim, through his lawyers, that he could issue some sort of blanket declassification order. It also describes a claim from Kash Patel, a former Trump national security aide who was named as one of Trump’s designees to the National Archives in June.
CNN’s Jeremy Herb noted: The investigator who wrote the affidavit cited a May article from right-wing website Breitbart, in which Patel claimed reports that the National Archives found classified material at Mar-a-Lago were “misleading” because Trump had declassified the materials.
The rest of the section in the affidavit, however, is classified, so it’s not clear why federal investigators cited Patel’s comments.
Since the FBI’s search, Trump has pointed to a January 19, 2021, memo in which he declassified documents related to the FBI’s Russia investigation. There’s no evidence, however, that those materials were what the FBI was looking for when it searched Mar-a-Lago earlier this month.
More important clues.
A DOJ lawyer says the documents in the 15 boxes were removed from a secure facility at the White House on January 20, 2021, the day Trump left office.
The lawyer specifically told Trump’s lawyers the documents were not handled appropriately and asks Trump’s attorney to secure and preserve the room at Mar-a-Lago where the 15 boxes had been stored.
If nothing else, we know Trump’s lawyers saw DOJ’s request.
The DOJ has redacted its arguments laying out probable cause for the August search at Mar-a-Lago. CNN’s Marshall Cohen, Tierney Sneed and Jeremy Herb reported that in a legal brief also made public Friday, prosecutors wrote that these details had to be redacted because they would provide a "road map" to the investigation and that revealing "this information could thus adversely impact the government's pursuit of relevant evidence." Read more here.
Here are some new details. The FBI was looking at more than a storage room and Trump’s “45 Office.” They also focused on his “residential suite” and a room identified as Pine Hall. Here’s a picture of Pine Hall from the Library of Congress. It’s described as “antechamber to the owner’s suite.”
The FBI took pains to make clear that Mar-a-Lago club members would not be disturbed by the search.
The conclusion asks for a search warrant, which was granted and then kept under seal. Read key lines from that document here.
Two teams of agents were sent to Mar-a-Lago. The Case Team was the main group of agents on the case and they were planning to search the storage room. A second team, the Privilege Review Team, searched Trump’s office and sought to separate any documents with information that could be considered “attorney-client privileged” and keep those away from the Case Team.
Earlier this week, Trump’s legal team asked for a “special master” to review the materials that were retrieved under the search warrant. Their request is still pending.
The affidavit was submitted on August 5, a Friday. The search was conducted the next Monday, August 8.
This May letter from Trump’s attorney complained there had been public reporting about the DOJ investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents. It argued that he voluntarily handed over documents, which may be an oversimplification.
Trump’s lawyer argued the president has sweeping “unfettered” authority to declassify documents — and that neither presidents nor former presidents can be prosecuted with regard to classified documents. That’s the heart of Trump’s defense so far.
Trump’s lawyer demanded that his letter arguing Trump had “unfettered” ability to de-classify documents be presented to any judge considering the matter. On that request, the FBI complied.
Here’s a description of Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s sprawling 58-bedroom Florida estate. The FBI promised that the search, according to the affidavit, would not extend beyond areas used by Trump.
The first thing the FBI wanted to do was seize any classified documents and the boxes or containers that held them. The last was any evidence of “knowing alteration, destruction, or concealment” of records.
In a newly disclosed May letter, the US National Archives reports the finding of classified documents at Donald Trump's Florida home earlier this year, with some having the highest levels of classification.
The large quantity of classified material recovered in January by the National Archives and Records Administration provides more insight into what led to the FBI's search of Trump's residence at the Mar-a-Lago resort.
(Reuters Archive)
The US National Archives
discovered more than 700 pages of classified documents at Donald
Trump's Florida home in addition to material seized this month
by FBI agents, according to a newly disclosed May letter that
the records agency sent to the Republican former president's
attorney.
The May 10 letter was sent by Acting US Archivist Debra Steidel Wall to Trump attorney Evan Corcoran.
It was released late on Monday by John Solomon, a journalist who Trump authorised in June to access his presidential records. The National Archives then confirmed its authenticity and posted a copy on its website.
"Among the materials in the boxes are over 100 documents with classification markings, comprising more than 700 pages. Some include the highest levels of classification, including Special Access Program (SAP) materials," Wall's letter said, referring to security protocols reserved for some of the country's most closely held secrets.
The letter contains additional information about Trump's handling of classified materials and his efforts to delay federal officials from being able to review the documents.
The letter shows that Trump's legal team repeatedly tried to stall the Archives from letting the FBI and intelligence officials review the materials, saying that he needed more time to determine if any of the records were covered by a doctrine called executive privilege that enables a president to shield some records.
READ MORE: FBI seized 'top secret' files in raid on Trump home
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ur1IEH0SKaA[/embed]
'No precedent'
The large quantity of classified material in 15 boxes
recovered in January by the National Archives and Records
Administration, some marked as "top secret," provides more
insight into what led to the FBI's court-authorised August 8
search of Trump's residence at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm
Beach.
The agency is responsible for preserving government records.
President Joe Biden's administration — specifically the
Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel — has determined
that the materials were not covered by executive privilege.
It
found that "there is no precedent" for a former president to
shield records from a sitting president using executive
privilege when the materials in question legally belong to the
federal government, according to the letter.
Even after Trump returned the 15 boxes to the Archives, the
Justice Department still suspected he had more classified
material at Mar-a-Lago.
The August 8 search was part of a federal investigation into
whether Trump illegally removed documents from the White House
when he left office in January 2021 after his failed 2020
re-election bid and whether he tried to obstruct the
government's investigation into the removal of the records.
In a lawsuit Trump filed late on Monday against the Justice
Department over the search, he said he was served a grand jury
subpoena on May 11 seeking additional classified records.
On June 3, the department's head of counterintelligence and
three FBI agents visited Mar-a-Lago to inspect a storage room
and collect additional records. Trump received a second subpoena
later that month seeking surveillance footage from security
cameras, which he also provided.
During the August 8 search, FBI agents recovered more than 20
additional boxes containing about 11 sets of records marked as
classified.
READ MORE: US agents reportedly looked for nuclear files in Trump house raid
Source: Reuters
In the spring of 2020, National Park Service personnel were preparing for an event President Donald Trump was holding with Fox News to address the nascent covid-19 pandemic from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, site of historic protests and inaugural concerts.
But, first, they had to brief Trump on the plans.
“As of now we’re looking at an event at base of Lincoln from 6-8 or so Sunday night. No event in chamber. I will see if that holds once POTUS is briefed later today,” Jeff Reinbold, the Park Service’s superintendent for the National Mall and Memorial Parks, wrote in an April 28, 2020, email to other agency officials.
By the next morning, the virtual “town hall” was no longer to be held at the base, the documents show. Trump’s two-hour sit-down with Fox News anchors would take place inside the memorial’s main chamber, on the landing in the shadow of the marble statue of a seated Lincoln. With the exception of an annual birthday tribute to Lincoln, federal regulations bar events from being held in that area.
The email is among hundreds of pages of newly released government documents that help fill in the picture of how officials from multiple government agencies worked to engineer the event at the Lincoln, one of the many norm-defying moments of the Trump presidency. They show that the Park Service provided security personnel at a cost of nearly $150,000 and that a Secret Service official apologized to colleagues for the planning process, calling it a “$#!t show.”
After the event, officials noted that the memorial itself — then 98 years old — had sustained scratches and gouges in its pink marble floor, according to a final memorandum.
In the end, the Trump-appointed interior secretary, David Bernhardt, relaxed the rules by finding that the venue was appropriate, given the president’s need to communicate with the American people during a “grave time of national crisis.” That finding has been previously reported.
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, the executive director of the Partnership for Civil Justice, a progressive group that acquired the documents through a public-records request, said she believes Bernhardt exceeded his authority and allowed Trump to use “the Lincoln Memorial as his stage set.”
“They’re trying to find a way, it looks like, to give him the chamber when there is no legal way to give him the chamber,” she said.
Verheyden-Hilliard’s group often litigates on behalf of those seeking access to public spaces, pressing the government to properly allow free-speech activities and protests along Pennsylvania Avenue and elsewhere.
Mike Litterst, a spokesman for the Park Service, did not address specific questions from The Washington Post. He said in a statement that the agency monitored the activity associated with the town hall, as it does any event not sponsored by the Park Service.
A spokesman for the Secret Service declined to comment. A Trump spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.
Bernhardt said in an interview that he stood by the decision and that government lawyers had approved it. At the time, federal officials and the nation were in the early stages of learning how deadly and transmissible the novel coronavirus was. Mass business closures enacted weeks before had forced layoffs. The unemployment rate had quadrupled.
“I felt that it was an important moment for the country,” Bernhardt told The Post.
On May 3, 2020, at the opening of the town hall, Trump greeted Fox anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum by saying, “We never had a more beautiful set than this did we?” according to a transcript.
The hosts asked about criticism that had already surfaced about the use of the memorial as the site for the event.
“What can you criticize? It’s — I don’t think it’s ever been done, what we’re doing tonight here,” Trump said. “And I think it’s great for the American people to see.”
All presidents use national parks as backdrops for photo opportunities and promotional events, said Kristen Brengel of the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit organization that works to protect the national park system. For his 2009 inaugural, President Barack Obama hosted a concert on the steps of the memorial and was photographed in the chamber. Four years later, he gave a speech on the steps as part of a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech.
But, by siting the town hall inside the memorial, with Fox News, Brengel said, the Trump administration held an event in defiance of federal regulations in a space that is hallowed ground to manyAmericans.
“This wasn’t a national emergency to do an event inside the Lincoln Memorial,” she said. “This was the commercial use of a park site in the middle of a pandemic.”
On April 28, the day before the event was announced, officials began sharing early information about it with one another, according to the documents. Reinbold told colleagues that it was being planned for the front steps of the memorial and directed a Fox News staffer to apply for the necessary permit.
Reinbold mentioned that the plans could change after they were presented to Trump that day.
Security personnel at the U.S. Park Police and the Secret Service began to make staffing considerations on short notice. A Park Police official justified the need to call in extra officers on the weekend by citing an emergency order issued weeks earlier allowing for “mission critical adjustments” to help the nation respond to the pandemic.
A Secret Service official helping to staff the event apologized for the process. “Sorry this is such a $#!t show. Will have answers shortly,” wrote the official, whose name is redacted in the documents.
The next day, with the event moved into the memorial’s chamber,Fox News would not need a permit after all, Reinbold wrote. He told colleagues it was out of his hands. “They are using the site as a venue and this is not a co-sponsored or NPS event in any way,” he wrote on April 29.
Trump and Fox announced that the event would take place four days later, on a Sunday evening.
Fox News began making arrangements. A Fox staffer sent Park Service officials a photo taken from the 1963 March on Washington, shot from behind Lincoln’s statue looking out at the entrance, that she hoped to replicate.
“We are also looking to achieve the camera shot in the attached picture,” she wrote on April 30.
An inscription marks the spot where King spoke, 18 steps from the top landing of the memorial.
On May 3, Bernhardt issued a “record of determination,” citing the growing pandemic and the need for the president to communicate with Americans as reasoning to allow the event. “In this grave time of national crisis, the Memorial is a uniquely appropriate place from which our President can communicate an official message to the American people,” Bernhardt wrote.
Verheyden-Hilliard rejected the idea that the interior secretary had such authority. “All they are really doing is putting window dressing on something that is clearly illegal,” she said.
In response to questions from The Post, Fox News Media said in a statement that the station had been approached by the Trump administration and “agreed to moderate the May 2020 event in an effort to provide critical information to the American public.”
“The location of the Lincoln Memorial was proposed by the administration and Fox News worked directly with the National Park Service to ensure the production followed every protocol to protect the space,” the company said.
A Park Service memo after the event said the production crew had “generally followed previously agreed to requirements.” But it also said: “Inside the Lincoln Chamber there are several scratches and gouges on the flooring. Photo documentation taken and referred to the park’s senior management.”
No photos of damage were among the documents released. Fox News said it was unaware of any damage. “At no point was the network made aware of any damages as a result of the event,” the company said.
Litterst said in the statement that the damage was “addressed in-house by the park’s conservators.”
In correspondencein the days after the event, about how to respond to reporters’ questions, Litterst made clear to colleagues that he did not want to give the impression that the agency would allow such an event to take place again: “I think it’s a good opportunity to slam the door on anyone who thinks they can make a similar ask to do an interview in the chamber.”
