By Steve Neavling
Newly released photos from the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago show the “haphazard manner” in which Donald Trump stored boxes of classified documents that were seized in August 2022.
Federal prosecutors revealed the photos in a filing in response to Trump’s motion to dismiss the case, according to numerous news reports.
The photos show records strewn across the floor alongside boxes of newspapers, photographs and clothing.
“Trump personally chose to keep documents containing some of the nation’s most highly guarded secrets in cardboard boxes along with a collection of other personally chosen keepsakes of various sizes and shapes from his presidency — newspapers, thank-you notes, Christmas ornaments, magazines, clothing, and photographs of himself and others,” the filing says.
Prosecutors said the classified documents had “no apparent organization whatsoever.”
“This is not a case where reams of identically-sized documents were stacked neatly in file folders or redwelds, arrayed perfectly within a box,” the government’s response read.
Prosecutors also insist that “at every stage, the agents have maintained the integrity of each container in which the evidence was found.”
Meanwhile, Judge Aileen M. Cannon did not appear to be impressed with defense attorneys’ claims that the FBI search was conducted improperly, The New York Times reports.
