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Mar-a-Lago’s classified-documents mess stops looking like a squabble and starts looking like a disaster
Court filings and contemporaneous reporting on August 12 made the Mar-a-Lago search look far more serious than Trump’s public spin suggested. The inventory tied to the search showed agents had recovered materials marked at high classification levels, undercutting the former president’s claim that the dispute was just about a few boxed-up souvenirs. That made the political problem bigger, because the story was no longer about Trump complaining about a raid; it was about why such sensitive records were at his club in the first place.