The U.S. Justice Department said late Tuesday that classified documents were "likely concealed and removed" from former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate as part of an effort to obstruct the federal investigation into the discovery of the government records.
The FBI also seized 33 boxes containing more than 100 classified records during its Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago and found classified documents stashed in Trump's office, according to a filing that lays out the most detailed chronology to date of months of strained interactions between Justice Department officials and Trump representatives over the discovery of government secrets.
The filing offers yet another indication of the volume of classified records retrieved from Mar-a-Lago. It shows how investigators conducting a criminal probe have focused not just on why the records were improperly stored there, but also on the question of whether the Trump team intentionally misled them about the continued, and unlawful, presence of the top secret documents.
The timeline laid out by the Justice Department made clear that the extraordinary Mar-a-Lago search came only after other efforts since 2021 to retrieve the records had failed — and that it resulted from law enforcement suspicion that additional documents remained inside the property despite assurances by Trump representatives that a "diligent search" had accounted for all of the material.
It also included a picture of some of the seized documents bearing clear classification markings, perhaps as a way to rebut arguments that it was possible not to appreciate their sensitive nature. The photo shows the cover pages of a smattering of paperclip-bound classified documents — some marked as "TOP SECRET//SCI" with bright yellow borders, and one marked as "SECRET//SCI" with a rust-coloured border — along with whited-out pages, splayed out on a carpet at Mar-a-Lago.
Declassification claim questioned
During a June 3 visit to Mar-a-Lago by FBI and Justice Department officials, the document states, counsel for Trump "offered no explanation as to why boxes of government records" remained at his estate. Trump — who assailed the probe as politically motivated in several posts Tuesday on Truth Social, a social media site, has also not offered an explanation.
Trump has said he had declassified all of the documents at Mar-a-Lago, but his lawyers did not suggest that during the visit and instead "handled them in a manner that suggested counsel believed that the documents were classified," according to the document.