The initial batch of documents retrieved by the National Archives from former President Donald Trump in January included more than 150 marked as classified, a number that ignited intense concern at the Justice Department and helped trigger the criminal investigation that led FBI agents to swoop into Mar-a-Lago this month seeking to recover more, multiple people briefed on the matter said.
In total, the government has recovered more than 300 documents with classified markings from Trump since he left office, the people said: that first batch of documents returned in January, another set provided by Trump’s aides to the Justice Department in June and the material seized by the FBI in the search this month.
The previously unreported volume of the sensitive material found in the former president’s possession in January helps explain why the Justice Department moved so urgently to hunt down any further classified materials he might have.
And the extent to which such a large number of highly sensitive documents remained at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, for months, even as the department sought the return of all material that should have been left in government custody when Trump left office, suggested to officials that the former president or his aides had been cavalier in handling it, not fully forthcoming with investigators, or both.
The specific nature of the sensitive material that Trump took from the White House remains unclear. But the 15 boxes Trump turned over to the archives in January, nearly a year after he left office, included documents from the CIA, the National Security Agency and the FBI spanning a variety of topics of national security interest, a person briefed on the matter said.
The Justice Department investigation is continuing, suggesting that officials are not certain whether they have recovered all the presidential records that Trump took with him from the White House.
Even after the extraordinary decision by the FBI to execute a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8, investigators have sought additional surveillance footage from the club, people familiar with the matter said.
On Monday, a federal magistrate issued a formal order directing the Justice Department to send him under seal proposed redactions to the affidavit underlying the warrant used to search Mar-a-Lago by Thursday, accompanied by a memo explaining its justifications.
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