It has been nearly a month since the FBI controversially raided former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida in search of classified documents and presidential records that he’d taken with him when he left the White House in January 2021.
The federal government has now released a relatively detailed list of everything that was seized by FBI agents during the August 8 raid, CBS News reported.
That inventory list was filed under seal in a federal court on Tuesday but was ordered unsealed and released to the public Thursday on a judge’s order after Trump’s legal team declined to object to the unsealing, which finally occurred on Friday.
The unsealed inventory list, labeled as “Exhibit A,” listed 33 items that were typically described as individual boxes or containers, each with their own subset of items found therein. Some of those boxes and containers held documents or folders with classification markings, as well as non-classified government documents and records along with clearly personal items, such as gifts and mementos or magazines and newspapers, among other things.
Everything that was seized from Mar-a-Lago
According to a breakdown from The Post Millennial, of the 33 boxes seized by the FBI, 16 of them contained documents or folders bearing classification markings while the other 17 seized boxes or containers did not.
The outlet noted, “In total, 54 documents were seized labeled Secret, 18 documents seized labeled Top Secret, and another 31 documents that were labeled Confidential.”
That would be 103 documents with some sort of classification marking. Meanwhile, the inventory list showed that another 12,853 other items were also seized by the FBI that bore no sort of classification markings whatsoever, some of which were non-classified government documents and records but much of which were personal items.
Bear in mind that former President Trump has insisted that he previously declassified anything that was found in his possession, as he had the right to do for any or no reason at all when he was the acting president.
CBS News noted in its report that federal prosecutors told the court that a criminal investigation was “ongoing and active,” and stated in the legal filing, “Evidence of commingling personal effects with documents bearing classification markings is relevant evidence of the statutory offenses under investigation.”
Not a narrow “surgical” search, but a “smash and grab” by the FBI
In response to the release of the inventory list, Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich tweeted, “The new ‘detailed’ inventory list only further proves that this unprecedented and unnecessary raid of President Trump’s home was not some surgical, confined search and retrieval that the Biden administration claims, it was a SMASH AND GRAB.”
“These document disputes should be resolved under the Presidential Records Act, which requires cooperation and negotiation by NARA, not an armed FBI raid,” he added in reference to the National Archives and Records Administration.
Former President Trump has not yet specifically addressed the released inventory list, but he did make a couple of posts to his Truth Social platform on Saturday morning that broadly excoriated the FBI and Justice Department for being corrupt and politicized institutions and reiterated his longstanding grievances against them that date back to his initial candidacy in 2016.