A search for documents carried out at the behest of former President Donald Trump's attorneys turned up two documents with classified markings at a Florida storage facility, two people familiar with the documents told NBC News.
The documents were found recently in a facility not far from Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort and were turned over to the FBI, the sources said, confirming a report published Wednesday in The Washington Post.
The find comes almost four months after FBI agents executed a search warrant at Trump's Florida residence and found over 100 documents with classification markings, including some that were marked top secret.
That search came after the feds issued a subpoena in May demanding the return of any documents marked classified that left the White House with Trump. In June, lawyers for the former president told the Justice Department in a letter that all documents with classification markings had been returned.
Trump’s lawyers hired an outside firm to conduct searches last month at the storage facility and other locations. The storage unit where the new documents were found was in West Palm Beach. The nature of the documents was not revealed. One of the sources said Trump has never been inside the storage facility.
The FBI declined to comment. Representatives for Trump also did not immediately return requests for comment.
Trump's office had arranged with the federal General Services Administration to have six pallets of boxes to be moved from a storage facility in Virginia down to West Palm Beach and Mar-a-Lago in July of 2021, GSA emails previously obtained by NBC News show. The pallets were delivered in August of 2021, with four going to the storage facility and two going to Mar-a-Lago, the emails show.
The Justice Department has been conducting what it's described as an active criminal investigation into whether the White House documents found at Mar-a-Lago were mishandled as well as possible obstruction of justice.
The discovery of the new documents is further evidence that Trump and his team did not fully comply with a grand jury subpoena issued in May seeking all documents marked classified still in their possession.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing and alternatively claimed that the documents were his personal property and that he'd declassified all the documents that were in his possession.
