According to a newly unsealed court filing, additional classified documents were discovered in former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home by his lawyers after the FBI completed its search of his southern Florida estate in 2022. The documents, marked as classified, were found in President Trump’s bedroom approximately four months after the initial raid, as detailed in a newly unsealed March 2023 opinion by U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell.
Special counsel Jack Smith is investigating the case and has charged the former president with 40 felony charges related to the mishandling of classified information. These charges include the unlawful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and concealing a document in a federal investigation. President Trump, who has pleaded not guilty to the charges, has defended his actions under the protection of the Presidential Records Act.
Judge Howell’s 87-page opinion from the previous year revealed that President Trump’s lawyers conducted additional searches of his properties after the initial FBI raid, seizing over 100 classified documents, some marked as “secret” and “top secret.” The searches included Trump National Golf Club Bedminster, Trump Tower, storage units and offices in West Palm Beach, and Mar-a-Lago.
Among the additional documents discovered in Mar-a-Lago was an empty folder and a “mostly empty folder marked ‘Classified Evening Summary,’” found in President Trump’s bedroom. The exact contents of these folders were not disclosed in the judge’s opinion, and there was no evidence to suggest that President Trump was aware of the classified documents in his possession.
Judge Howell expressed skepticism at President Trump’s purported lack of awareness, considering the presence of classified records in his Florida residence following the August raid. The judge also noted the discovery of four other documents during the additional search, described as “low-level ministerial documents” without explicit classification markings.
In her opinion, Judge Howell confirmed that the four documents were responsive to a May 2022 subpoena and provided sufficient evidence to support allegations of President Trump mishandling classified materials. An unnamed witness associated with President Trump’s Save America PAC scanned the contents of the classified box and stored them on a laptop owned by the PAC. President Trump’s counsel later handed over these scans to the government in January 2023.
The latest opinion was unsealed as part of President Trump’s legal efforts to dismiss the case against him. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon ordered the batch of documents to be docketed publicly following negotiations between the legal teams. The Epoch Times reached out to a spokesperson for President Trump for comment. Please rewrite the paragraph for me.
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