WASHINGTON (CNBC) – 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 has revealed.
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, reported.
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 August 8 raid, which was authorized to search for government documents removed from the White House when Trump left office in January 2021, the filing said.
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 January 2021.
By law, such records must be turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration.
On Tuesday, the DOJ said in another court filing that more than 100 classified documents were found at Mar-a-Lago. That property receipt noted that the government seized 11 sets of classified documents, as well as an executive grant of clemency regarding Roger Stone, a longtime Republican operative and Trump confidant.
The previously disclosed property inventory of data-x-items seized lists multiple U.S. government documents with “confidential”, “secret” and “top secret” classification markings.
The detailed inventory made public Friday was one of two court filings related to the FBI raid that were ordered unsealed by Judge Aileen Cannon after she conducted a hearing Thursday on a request by Trump’s lawyers to appoint a third-party to review the seized records.