attested to the fbi that all the records that he had were being kept in a storage room in mar-a-lago. now ourably the most alarming detail in this newly released inventory list. a box found in his office contains, quote, 43 empty folders with classified banners raising big questions about what happened to the classified documents that were at one time inside those folders. in a notice filed with the inventory the justice department says it has already reviewed every item. they add this, quote, all evidence pertaining to the seized items including, but not limited to the nature and manner in which they were stored as well as any evidence with respect to particular documents or items of interest will inform the government s investigation. another key focus today of the investigation how these records which include more than 10,000 non-classified government documents ended up at mar-a-lago, and why these particular records were kept by trump. some of them for more than a year an
boxes retrieved from mar-a-lago in january. quoting page 8 here, the boxes contained newspapers, magazines, printed news articles, photos, miscellaneous printouts, notes, presidential correspondence, presidential records, and quote, a lot of classified records. most significant heerkre, the concern that highly classified records were unfolded and intermixed with the other records, and otherwise inappropriately identified. let s go now to cnn senior justice correspondent evan perez. investigators listed the kinds of classified documents they thought could still be on premise there at mar-a-lago. right. and this is the reason. this document is the reason why the fbi conducted that extraordinary search and seizure at the former president s mohom more than two weeks ago. it goes to the documents that were found in the initial 15 boxes that were retrieved by the national archives, earlier this year. they were brought back to the national archives and in it, you know, when they s
the material was marked with the highest levels of classification that exists, material that is meant to be held only in secure government facilities not at a private club where basically anyone can pay for membership and wander around. arguably, the agent s most alarming finding that we were able to see in this redacted version was that the boxes contained classified information that came from human intelligence sources meaning if the documents were mishandled, leaked or transmitted they could compromise the identity of american intelligence assets and the affidavit also lays out why doj had good reason not to believe or trust trump and his lawyers knowing that back in february of this year, after the archives notified congress that there was classified material and what they got back from mar-a-lago, trump put out a statement that very fact. investigators write this, quote, there is probable cause to believe that additional documents that contain classified national defense
probe into an ex-president s handling of classified material. new york times notes that it is incredibly rare for even a partial affidavit to be released at all. they add this, quote, the submission by the justice department is a significant legal mile post in an investigations that has swiftly emerged as a major threat to trump, whose lawyers have offered a confused and at times stumbling response, but it is also an inflexion point for attorney general merrick garland who is trying to balance protecting the prosecutorial process by keeping secret details of the investigation and providing enough information to defend his decision to request a search unlike any other in history. the impending release of a critical document in doj s investigation into the ex-president is where we begin today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. carol leonnig is here and former national security adviser to president obama and neal katyal is back former solicitor general and now law
records that were taken by the twice-impeached ex-president when he left office in january 2021. the new reporting also details team trump s months of resistance led by the ex-president himself to handing over records containing some of the country s most important and guarded national security secrets. it reveals that the search of trump s private resident was actually many months in the making and really just the latest chapter in a long, simmering investigation. here s what happened when the national archives got their hands on the first batch of documents from mar-a-lago back in january according to this new reporting in the washington post, quote, when archives employees began opening up and sifting the material they noticed an immediate problem. the boxes arrived without logs and inventories to describe their content according to a person familiar with the recovery. instead they contained a hodgepodge of documents including some that didn t come from trump s time in o