'Top secret' papers, empty secrets folders found in Trump office

Some of the classified documents taken by the FBI from Donald Trump's Florida home were discovered in his personal office, a court filing showed Friday, potentially bolstering allegations he mishandled secrets and obstructed justice.

The detailed list of what was seized in the August 8 raid on the former US president's Mar-a-Lago estate also showed Trump held on to more than 11,000 unclassified government records that he claims are his to keep -- but legally are owned by the National Archives.

The list appeared to provide support for the US Justice Department's unprecedented probe.

In their warrant for the raid, they cited the Espionage Act, which bans the retention and sharing of highly sensitive documents pertaining to national defense; the law against obstructing investigation; and a law against destruction of government documents.

Among the papers seized in the raid were 18 documents labelled "top secret", 53 labelled "secret" and another 31 marked "confidential".

Of those, seven top secret files, 17 secret files and three confidential files were retrieved from Trump's private office.

Agents also found several dozen empty folders labelled "classified" in the office, raising speculation that sensitive documents may have been lost or destroyed.

Much of what agents found there and in a separate storeroom was intermixed in boxes with Trump's personal legal files, clothing, gifts and books tossed together for moving in his final days in the White House in January 2021.

The list was unveiled in a federal court in Florida.

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Trump has sued the government to have the documents turned over to a neutral "special master," a move which could slow the government's investigation and possibly allow him to regain control of files he does not want made public or used in other probes.

The August raid came after 15 months of haggling between Trump, the Archives and FBI over the records he took with him to Florida.

In January he gave 15 boxes of records to the Archives, which, after discovering top secret documents mixed in with them, informed the Justice Department.

Using a subpoena, in June top Justice officials visited the estate and collected another batch of classified files.

But it discovered that more remained there, and obtained a court warrant for the August raid.