Donald Trump Took 300 Classified Documents From White House To Mar-a-Lago

Former U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly took 300 documents that were classified from the White House to his Florida property.

According to The New York Times, the scale of Trump's cache of files is what pushed the Department of Justice (DOJ) to launch their raid on Aug. 8.

In January, the first tranche of 150 classified documents were reportedly returned to the National Archives. Some were returned in June, and the rest were seized in the raid on Mar-a-Lago. Earlier this month, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents removed 26 boxes, including 11 sets of material that were marked as classified, reported Daily Mail.

One set of box had the highest level of top secret and sensitive compartmented information. It was not revealed what the classified material was about. A receipt that was made public following the recent FBI search said that there were classified documents relating to French President Emmanuel Macron.

There were also documents detailing the clemency Trump granted to his longtime backer Roger Stone. The 15 boxes that Trump handed over in January, nearly a year after he left the White House, included documents from the FBI, Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency.

A source said that the documents detailed multiple topics that were of national security interest. Before handing the boxes over, Trump reportedly went through them himself in late 2021.

Meanwhile, Trump on Monday filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government over the August FBI search. The suit seeks to temporarily stop the bureau from reading the seized materials until a special court official can be appointed to review the documents concerned, according to The Guardian. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Florida.

It said that Trump's Fourth Amendment rights had been violated by the seizure of certain documents. It included two of his passports. It also puts forward the possibility that the former President will argue in the court that the documents, including some at the top government classification levels, had been declassified by him.

The lawsuit news comes as a magistrate in Florida prepares to decide whether to unseal the search affidavit that led to the FBI raid.