Classified Docs Found at Trump Storage Unit With ‘Swords and Wrestling Belts’
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Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers identified additional documents with classification markings in a search that spanned three Trump properties, including the Bedminster Golf Club in New Jersey and Trump Tower in New York, according to a report from The Washington Post.
The lawyers, who hired an external team to conduct a search of Trump’s properties following the August raid at his Mar-a-Lago estate, found at least two documents with classification markings in a storage unit in West Palm Beach, Florida. The documents allegedly made their way into the storage unit as part of a 3,000-pound transport of miscellaneous items shipped from Virginia to Florida. It was full of “suits and swords and wrestling belts and all sorts of things,” a source told the Post, who asserted Trump had likely never even been to the unit.
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Sources told the Post that the material was turned over to the FBI, which had declined to supervise the searches. Those familiar with the ongoing investigation also indicated to the Post that classified materials were not recovered from searches conducted at the Bedminster club and Trump Tower.
Prosecutors investigating claims from the National Archives that Trump retained hundreds of classified documents without authorization when he departed from the White House have remain unconvinced that the former president turned over all classified material. DOJ officials have questioned members of his team regarding the potential of documents having been stored in other locations.
Despite repeated negotiations with Trump’s representation, and assurances that there were no documents remaining at Mar-a-Lago following a June handover of materials, federal agents recovered more than 100 documents with classification markings in their August raid of the property. Some of the recovered materials had “top secret” classification labels and allegedly contained sensitive information regarding other nations’ nuclear programs.
Following the raid, authorities made clear that they suspected Trump and his team had attempted to move or conceal the trove of documents before the raid.
The former president and his counsel engaged in a protracted, yet largely unsuccessful, effort to prevent federal investigators from reviewing the content of the documents seized in the various raids and handovers. Trump went so far as to launch a failed appeal to the Supreme Court he stocked with conservative appointees to prevent the DOJ from accessing the documents.
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