Lawyers hired by former President Donald Trump found at least two documents marked as classified while searching a storage facility in West Palm Beach, Fla. late last month, and handed over the materials to the FBI, according to multiple reports.
The team that made the discovery was brought in by the 76-year-old Trump’s representatives to ensure they had fully complied with a May grand jury subpoena ordering the handover of all materials with classified markings at the former president’s properties, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.
The storage unit where the documents were found had been used to hold items from an office in Northern Virginia where Trump staffers kept materials after he left the White House in January 2021.
The report said Trump staffers and a federal agency shipped several pallets of boxes and assorted items weighing about 3,000 pounds from Northern Virginia to the unit in Florida in September 2021.
The FBI executed a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort on Aug. 8 and recovered more than 100 documents marked classified.
Another 37 classified documents were uncovered during a search of Trump’s home in June, and 15 boxes containing 184 classified documents were taken by the National Archives and Records Administration in January.
The Justice Department has contended that Trump has retained even more sensitive materials he removed from the White House.
It’s not clear what information the classified documents found in Florida contained, but the unit held boxes, gifts, clothing and other items.
“It was suits and swords and wrestling belts and all sorts of things,” a source told the Washington Post. “To my knowledge, he has never even been to that storage unit. I don’t think anyone in Trump world could tell you what’s in that storage unit.”
Outside teams, hired at the behest of a federal judge to ensure compliance with the subpoena, also searched Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J., and Trump Tower in Manhattan, as well as one other property.
The searches were carried out around Thanksgiving, the New York Times reported, adding that a storage closet at Mar-a-Lago was also examined.
Trump’s lawyers told the Justice Department that the search of the Bedminster resort and the Fifth Avenue skyscraper did not turn up any new classified documents, the Washington Post said.
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump, said the former president is working with investigators.
“President Trump and his counsel continue to be cooperative and transparent, despite the unprecedented, illegal, and unwarranted attack against President Trump and his family by the weaponized Department of Justice,” he said.
