Inventory shows FBI took 11 sets of classified documents out of Mar-a-Lago: report
During their search of the Donald Trump's Palm Beach resort this week, FBI agents recovered 11 sets of classified documents, including some marked as top secret and meant to "be only available in special government facilities," the Wall Street Journal reports.
Around 20 boxes of items, binders of photos, a handwritten note and the executive grant of clemency for Mr. Trump’s ally Roger Stone, were on a list of confiscated items that was reviewed by the newspaper. Also on the three-page list was information about the “President of France."
One set of documents recovered was marked, “Various classified/TS/SCI documents,” which, as the Wall Street Journal points out, is an abbreviation that refers to "top-secret/sensitive compartmented information."
The search warrant states that that FBI agents wanted to search “the 45 Office,” as well as “all storage rooms and all other rooms or areas within the premises used or available to be used by [the former president] and his staff and in which boxes or documents could be stored, including all structures or buildings on the estate.”
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People familiar with the matter say the search was intended to recover classified information that Trump allegedly mishandled.
Officials were poised Friday to make public a sealed warrant explaining the unprecedented raid on Trump's estate, which triggered accusations of political persecution by the former president and his supporters.
The 76-year-old Trump supported the release of the search warrant, although he has had a copy of the document for days and could have revealed its contents himself previously.
The search on Monday was believed to be focused on classified papers Trump may have removed from the White House, with one report suggesting they included documents related to nuclear weapons.
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The highly unusual move to unseal the search warrant and the receipt listing the property seized by FBI agents was announced by Attorney General Merrick Garland -- the country's top law enforcement officer -- who said he had "personally approved" the dramatic raid on Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort home.
"Release the documents now!" Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, as he slammed the raid on his home as a "political weaponization of law enforcement."
Andrew Weissmann, a former Justice Department official, said Garland had "called Trump's bluff" by putting the onus on the former president to object or consent to release of the document.
With additional reporting by AFP