Empty folders among items found in FBI search of Trump home

[herding cats]

Source: Washington Post

WASHINGTON — FBI agents who searched former President Donald Trump’s Florida home last month found empty folders marked with classified banners, according to a more detailed inventory of the seized material made public by the Justice Department on Friday.

The inventory reveals in general terms the contents of 33 boxes taken from Mar-a-Lago during the Aug. 8 search.

It shows the extent to which newspapers, magazines and other items were commingled among documents that investigators say were marked as classified, including at the top-secret level.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/empty-folders-among-items-found-in-fbi-search-of-trump-home/2022/09/02/57295e02-2ace-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html

[getagrip_already]

1. empty places on the supermarket shelf.....

He's pissed he cant restock. His customers won't be happy.

[Aviation Pro]

2. Arrest this thief and spy now....

....you are going to prison, motherfucker.

[Claustrum]

3. Is that enough probable clause to search his other properties? n/t

[EndlessWire]

4. What a good point! n/t

[Escurumbele]

7. Yes, that should not even be a question. He was at his NJ golf club where Saudis held a Golf

tournament (LIV Tour). Does anyone here doubt that he took some of those documents with him to sell them to the Saudis? or maybe pay some of his debts?

All his golf courses, his apartment in NY should be searched, this SOB is going to burn the USA to prevent going to jail, he is worst than a traitor, the SOB is a maniac, I don't understand why he is not in jail already, he should be in constant surveillance.

[wnylib]

31. Or Ivana's grave? I saw a post at Daily Kos that

suggested a reason for Trump wanting to hide (bury) some documents. They could be Intel on the J6 collaborators.

[Submariner]

5. FBI should visit Trump's office at that Scotland golf club

to see what he has squirreled away offshore.

[wnylib]

32. I've been wondering why this has not

been done yet or mentioned by DOJ.

[infullview]

6. What the hell?! Empty folder?

Yes they should search every crevice with a microscope. Empty folders probably = some happy foreign customer. This is bullshit.

[reACTIONary]

11. Take a look at the picture of the documents...

... Many of them do not have cover folders. ALL classified documents are supposed to have cover folders, and those that don't did. So empty cover folders do not necessarily mean missing documents.

They do mean documents that were separated from the required covers, which, as stated in the article, "shows the extent to which classified information — including material at the top-secret level — was kept in boxes and containers at the home and commingled among newspapers, magazines, clothing and other personal items".

[Hugh_Lebowski]

14. This is such an obvious possibility I have to think agents are now hard at work

reconciling the empty folders with documents recovered that were not in folders, to see if any are indeed missing, or just out of their proper folders.

I'd think it was damn near 'job one'.

But you're right, empty folders don't mean 'the contents are entirely unaccounted for'.

However, should it turn out, after reconciliation, that some or all of the expected contents of these empty folders are entirely missing ... Diaper Don better look out, man. That's gonna be a BFD.

[reACTIONary]

42. +10 nt

[Deminpenn]

45. Agree

The empty folders don't necessarily mean there are more classified documents. Trump apparently just dumped reading material in boxes with no organization. Wouldn't surprise me to learn he took the classified documents out of their folders and just chucked the folders aside to be scooped up later and tossed in a different box.

This does make the damage assessment harder because DNI et al can't assume there aren't more classified documents. I would think there are logs of what was taken out, returned and not returned though.

[reACTIONary]

47. +10 nt

[Traildogbob]

8. Deport this

MF’r to Moscow, strip his citizenship, book him a room on the 15th floor with big windows and leak documents to Putin that trump is gonna release photos of Putin with a black gay man.

[sinkingfeeling]

9. Dig up Ivana. Fixed it.

[TexasBushwhacker]

10. I agree. I don't put past that motherfucker

Supposedly she was cremated, but then was buried in a casket required TEN burly pallbearers to carry.

[louis-t]

15. Ivana. Ivanka is already dug up.

[truthisfreedom]

17. Pretty sure she's still alive!

Her mother Ivana died. But I wouldn’t be surprised if there are more classified files in the kids’ homes.

[IronLionZion]

22. Ivanka might be dead on the inside

[twodogsbarking]

40. I think Ivanka's name is Ivana too.

[Bayard]

12. Empty folders

Equals merchandise already sold.

[Stratman]

43. Yep

Can’t arrest this me pos fast enough for me.
Enhanced interrogation techniques may be called for

He is a huge shit stain on this nation and our history

[BumRushDaShow]

13. Here's the no paywall version

No paywall

And this part stands out at the end of WaPo's brief article -

It is not clear from the inventory list why any of the folders were empty or what might have happened to any of the documents inside.

[AllaN01Bear]

16. deliberately done . neet to check his sleezy hotels and other propertys too also.

[Novara]

18. stolen classified information

Lock that motherfucker the hell up.

[cstanleytech]

19. Sold to the highest bidder perhaps?

[ck4829]

50. Perhaps

[IronLionZion]

20. There could be more documents missing

if they were taken out of the folders

[PSPS]

21. Here are the filings from this morning

A little more detail about the 33 boxes and other items the FBI found inside Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, as part of its ongoing criminal investigation into whether he illegally retained national defense information and tried to obstruct the probe.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763.39.0_2.pdf

A brief three-page filing by the Justice Department updating the court about the status of its investigative team's review of the documents seized.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763.39.1_1.pdf

The trump judge is still working out how she can fashion her "ruling" to protect trump

[Tadpole Raisin]

34. Somewhere I saw that if she approved a S. M. That it would

immediately be appealed and very likely reversed as appointment of special masters is almost universally reserved for lawyers’ offices and the like.

That would make her look bad with such a poor ruling. On the other hand it would give her cover with the maggots.

Not a dilemma if you are a judge with integrity. So she wrings her hands and tries her best to thread the needle.

Barf

[Deminpenn]

46. Judge's easiest out would be to rule

Trump has no standing because all the documents belong to the government, not him.

[Scalded Nun]

24. Might even want to check for pee stains on those docs.

[Martin68]

25. Empty folders marked Top Secret? That doesn't bode well for the Dumpster.

[infullview]

26. Holy shit! I just read Guardian - there are 90 empty folders!!!

That's a shitload. What do bet that they are not going to find matching content for a lot of these.

[wnylib]

35. I am guessing that one way of disguising

that he had them and trying to keep them hidden was to remove them from folders and intermingle them with magazines and other personal, non governmental material.

It is also possible that missing documents are intelligence records of J6 collaborators.

[bluestarone]

27. Would NOT surprise me, if she was murdered just

To have a place to hide these documents. I know it's weird thinking here BUT this dirty bastard would do ANYTHING inhuman on this planet.

[wnylib]

36. Nothing is too weird to think of regarding Trump.

He has no boundaries.

[onetexan]

44. Yup the con has no bottom to his corruption

[Mr. Ected]

28. Folders Light, Must Indict

Got to get that treasonous treacherous traitorous Trump under oath to find out what happened to the contents of those folders.

[tavernier]

29. What's it matter?

He could give away all the gold in Fort Knox and the Republican judges would turn it over to a special masterbater and he would declare Rump innocent and crown him Emperor.

[BadgerMom]

30. Maggie Habermann at the Times

telling us, “He has all those harmless docs. He’s just messy.” in 5, 4, 3…

[maxrandb]

39. No, Maggie will say

"see, he didn't have the classified material, he just thought the folders look cool, however, did you see the 3 sentences on Hillary's 33K emails that had a small "c" in parenthesis?

[rubbersole]

33. Why would the FBI "plant" empty folders?

[world wide wally]

37. Anybody that would vote for him should be stripped of their citizenship.

[muriel_volestrangler]

38. I don't see why empty folders are significant, unless you know there was a minimum number of docs

that had to be put in each folder (which sounds unlikely). The folders could just be what the classified documents also found were in. Sure, the contents of the folder might be still hidden, but unless the folders have their contents written on them and that hasn't been accounted for, they'll just say "that was the folder that document was in". It shows someone looked at the contents, I suppose.

[William Seger]

41. Given the lack of security, they also could have been stolen

Criminal mishandling.

[ck4829]

49. Absolutely

[ck4829]

48. K&R