What items did the FBI seize during federal searches of Trump properties and what was the timeline for their return?
Executive summary
The Justice Department’s August 2022 Mar‑a‑Lago search led agents to seize dozens of boxes and a mix of classified and unclassified presidential records — including material later described in court inventories as top secret, secret and confidential — and the FBI returned property to Donald Trump in late February 2025, with boxes loaded onto Air Force One, according to White House and news accounts [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. What the FBI took: boxes, classified documents, binders and miscellany
Court filings and media inventories show the August 2022 search yielded a large and heterogeneous haul: agents seized dozens of boxes (commonly reported as 33 taken in the August 2022 search) that contained a mix of records, including items described in the property receipt as “Miscellaneous Top Secret Documents,” other top‑secret material, secret and confidential documents, a leatherbound box of documents, a binder of photos, a handwritten note, an order pardoning Roger Stone and material described as information about the “President of France,” among other presidential records identified by the FBI’s inventory [4] [5] [2]. Independent reporting and the government’s detailed listings also noted thousands of unclassified government records at Mar‑a‑Lago, with one account describing more than 10,000 government records without classification markings found at the estate [6].
2. The classified‑document tally and oddities in the inventory
A publicly released inventory and court filings enumerated the classified material the FBI removed: the listings include dozens of items across classification levels — for example, one detailed list cited the seizure of 18 documents marked top secret, 54 marked secret and 31 marked confidential, and separately referenced 11 sets of classified records with several labelled “Miscellaneous Top Secret Documents” and at least one entry marked “Various classified/TS/SCI documents” [2]. The filings also flagged 42 empty folders marked “Return to Staff Secretary/Military Aide,” including 28 in Trump’s office, a detail that the inventory did not resolve as to whether the missing contents were located elsewhere [2] [6].
3. How this unfolded over time: from NARA boxes to a federal search to charges
The sequence began with the National Archives retrieving 15 boxes of presidential material from Trump in January 2022, an action that preceded and prompted further review and a DOJ criminal inquiry opened March 30, 2022; a grand jury subpoena followed in May and Mr. Trump certified returning remaining documents on June 3, 2022, though prosecutors later say evidence showed documents had been moved or concealed, leading to the August 8, 2022 court‑authorized FBI search of Mar‑a‑Lago [7] [2] [1]. The August search and the unsealing of its warrant and property receipt set off months of litigation over the seized materials and informed later criminal charges filed in 2023 related to the handling of classified documents [1] [8].
4. The return of property and its timing
The return timeline culminated in a White House announcement at the end of February 2025 that the FBI had given property back to President Trump, with some boxes being loaded onto Air Force One on Feb. 28, 2025, according to Reuters and White House statements; contemporaneous reports from The Hill echoed that the boxes taken during the August 2022 search were being handed back and some were placed aboard the president’s plane [3] [4]. Separate reporting and public records earlier in the saga document other interactions between the Archives, DOJ and Trump’s team over the months after January 2022 — including NARA’s initial retrieval of 15 boxes and subsequent efforts to recover additional material — but the specific February 2025 movement of seized property back to the president is established in the cited news coverage [7] [2] [3].
5. Points of dispute, context and open questions
Media and legal sources diverge on emphasis and implication: government filings focused on probable cause and the classification status of seized items [2], while Trump allies characterized the search as improper and later the administration framed the handover as restoring property [4] [3]. Some public inventories list items like pardon orders and international diplomatic material [5], and other filings note unexplained empty folders and vast numbers of unclassified records, details that left unresolved questions about provenance, whether all contents were recovered, and how classification labels were applied or removed [2] [6]. Where source material is silent — for example, about the chain of custody for every specific document between January 2022 and February 2025 — reporting cannot fill those gaps without further disclosure from the agencies or court filings.