Court opens more detailed inventory of items recovered at Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago estate – Update

Updated, Friday AM: A more detailed inventory of what the FBI found during a search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property was released on Friday.

List – read here – Includes information compiled by Trump’s office. This includes documents marked as Secrets, Secrets and Confidential, but also 43 empty folders with “Secrets” banners.

United States District Judge Ailee Cannon ordered the document to be opened. She has yet to decide whether to appoint a “special teacher” in Trump’s case to correct the documents, as the former president argues that some of the issues fall under executive privilege and attorney-client privilege.

Before Wednesday: The Justice Department said the documents were “allegedly hidden and removed” from the Mar-a-Lago depot to hinder an investigation into former President Donald Trump’s possession of confidential materials.

Federal prosecutors filed the request in court Tuesday night as they oppose efforts to appoint a special master to examine the materials seized during an August 8 search of Trump’s property.

In the filing, the Justice Department said it had “developed evidence that government documents would be hidden and removed from filing and that efforts would likely hamper government investigations.”

The Justice Department statement outlines more than 18 months of effort to obtain Trump’s presidential documents, which were transferred to Mar-a-Lago when he left office. Under the Presidential Records Act, these records are the property of the United States government and are held in national archives.

After Trump’s team initially delivered 15 boxes of materials to the archives, the agency alerted the FBI when it found that confidential documents were mixed with other presidential materials. In May, Trump’s team received a grand jury summons to hand over additional material.

According to the latest Justice Department file, an envelope containing 38 confidential documents was released on June 3, including five classified, 16 documents marked secret and 17 documents marked secret.

“At the time of the production of the documents, neither the lawyer nor the ad litem guardian demonstrated that the former president concealed the documents or asserted any claim of executive privilege,” the Justice Department said in a statement. “Instead, the lawyer treated them in such a way that the lawyer believed the documents were confidential: the production included a single double-wrapped Redweld envelope containing the documents.

The FBI then “identified more sources of evidence” that more documents still remained in Mar-a-Lago, even though an unidentified Trump representative signed an affidavit stating that all documents had been turned over. The statement stated that “the government has developed evidence that a limited search of the vaults would not uncover all classified documents” in Mar-a-Lago.

A search by Mar-a-Lago earlier this month unearthed 11 sets of classified documents, along with other presidential material. The Justice Department has included photos of some of the documents seized from Trump’s office, as well as other items, including a framed Time cover.

The Justice Department has contested Trump’s claims that some of the documents are covered by executive privilege. He said the government “will also examine these highly sensitive records to determine if they pose national security risks.”

Trump’s team is expected to respond to the Department of Justice statement on Wednesday. Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social, that it was “scary how the FBI accidentally dumped documents all over the floor during the Mar-a-Lago raid (perhaps as if I was the one who did it). !). And then he started taking pictures of him for the public to see. They thought they wanted to keep them secret? I’m lucky I kept it a secret! ” Trump said he has a standing order to keep documents seized from the White House residence in Mar-a-Lago confidential. But there is no trace of such an order.