A photo has been released showing top secret documents uncovered during an FBI search of Donald Trump’s home in Florida.
It comes when the United States Department of Justice claims to have uncovered efforts to thwart its investigation into the discovery of confidential documents on former President Mar-a-Lago’s estate.
The image, released in a courtroom filing, showed the covers of several classified documents bound with staples, some of them marked as “top secret // ski” with bright yellow edges, scattered across the floor.
One can be seen labeled “secret // sci” with a rust-colored border, along with pages that have been deleted.
Next to them was a cardboard box filled with gold-framed images, including a Time Magazine cover featuring Mr. trump along with numerous other world leaders.
The department’s filing states that “government documents were likely hidden or removed” from a warehouse even after Trump representatives told officials they had thoroughly ransacked the property.
The FBI performed a foray into the estate on 8 August as part of an investigation into whether Trump took confidential documents from the White House.
Officers seized 33 boxes containing more than 100 confidential documents during the search and found three confidential documents hidden in the office drawers, the latest deposit also revealed.
Investigators who conducted the criminal investigation focused not only on why the documents were stored on the estate, but also on whether Trump’s team intentionally misled them about the illegal presence of government secrets.
The Mar-a-Lago estate
Search for closet
The document provides new details on the events of late May and June, when FBI and Justice Department officials issued a subpoena for the missing documents and then visited a storage room on the property.
During that June visit, the filing says Trump’s lawyers told investigators that all documents from the White House were held in the warehouse.
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They also stated that “there were no other documents filed in any private office or other location on the premises and that all available boxes were searched”.
However, the Justice Department later said it had “developed evidence that government documents had probably been hidden and removed from storage and that efforts had probably been made to obstruct” the investigation.
Read more:
Pages of a latest court filing from the Department of Justice
Request for a special teacher
Trump’s legal team has asked for a special master to review the files, with a U.S. district judge ready to hear arguments on the matter soon.
The lawyers have asked for the appointment, so there is someone in charge of examining the documents and setting aside those protected by claims of legal privilege.
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The judge said it was his “preliminary intention” to appoint such a person, but he also gave the Justice Department the opportunity to respond.
On Monday, the department said it had already reviewed the files and identified only a “limited set of materials that potentially contain” inside information.
