Mar-a-Lago inventory shows top secret docs, news clippings, books — and empty ‘classified’ folders

An inventory from last month’s FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home indicates that agents unearthed 18 top secrets documents, 31 documents carrying confidential markings and 48 empty folders marked as “classified,” according to court documents unsealed Friday.

The stash of secret papers were mixed in with books, unclassified government documents and hundreds of news clippings, according to the eight-page inventory, which surfaced as part of legal disputes surrounding the materials swiped from Trump’s Palm Beach, Fla., home on Aug. 8.

A filing from the Justice Department that accompanied the inventory said the review of the documents was “not a single investigative step but an ongoing process in this active criminal investigation.” The filing said the government has examined every item that it seized.

It was not immediately clear if the empty folders with “classified” markings indicated that some materials sought by the government remained beyond its grasp.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the inventory, nor did lawyers for Trump.

Trump’s legal team has requested that a court-appointed independent arbiter review the documents taken from Mar-a-Lago.

The inventory, unsealed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, appeared to illuminate a disorderly manner in which Trump stored papers on his Florida estate after leaving the White House in 2021.

Some have wondered if the ex-president kept files holding government secrets as keepsakes.

Trump did not immediately respond to the release of the new inventory on his Truth Social account, which he launched after he was banished by Twitter and Facebook last year. His spokeswoman, Liz Harrington, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.