300 classified documents have been seized from Mar-a-lago, report claims

The former president reportedly went through the documents himself.

Former president Donald Trump reportedly went through multiple boxes of presidential documents himself, The New York Timesreported late on Monday evening.

The Times reported that the initial batch of documents that the National Archives retrieved in January included more than 150 documents that were marked as classified, which led to the FBI executing a search warrant of Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida earlier this month.

The federal government reportedly recovered a total of 300 classifed documents since Mr Trump left the White House, multiple sources told The Times. Similarly, the extent to which a large number of documents remained at his home for an extended period of time suggests the careless nature that Mr Trump or his aides handled the information within them.

A person briefed on the matter said that the documents Mr Trump turned over in January included some related to the FBI, the CIA and the National Security Agency and that Mr Trump went through them personally.

By the end of the search earlier this month, officials had left with 26 boxes, including 11 boxes marked as classified.

The former president says he had a “standing order” to declassify material that left the White House, but no information has surfaced that he declassified material. The National Archives spent reportedly spent much of last year trying to retrieve documents from Mr Trump related to his presidency.

The FBI executed the search warrant earlier this month, authorised agents to search for “physical documents and records constituting evidence, contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed in violation” of US law, including the Espionage Act. Attorney General Merrick Garland said that he “personally approved” the search warrant for the president’s home.

The former president’s attorneys have filed a lawsuit requesting that a third party known as a special master review the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago to determine whether any of them should be returned because they are shielded by executive or attorney-client privilege.

The Times reported that after the Justice Department began its investigation earlier this year, it came to believe Mr Trump possessed additional documents it needed to collect and it issued a subpoena for the return of classified material.

In June, the chief of the counterespionage section of the national security division for the Justice Department, Jay Bratt, met with Mr Trump’s lawyers including Evan Corcoran and Christina Bobb, the latter of whom has become a fixture on Fox News in defence of the former president, to retrieve any remaining classified material.

Mr Corcoran reportedly showed Mr Bratt the storage room where the material was kept and Mr Trump briefly saw the investigators during the visit.

After Mr Bratt and agents who accompanied him were given classified material, Mr Corcoran drafted and Ms Bobb signed a statement saying that all classified material was returned.

But investigators reportedly came to believe there was still more classified information, which led to the Department subpoenaeing for Mar-a-Lago’s security footage on 22 June. The Department began to draft an arrest warrant after a combination of witness interviews and viewing security footage.

In turn, FBI agents discovered documents in the basement of Mar-a-Lago as well as in Mr Trump’s office, people told The Times.