Trump admits to taking classified folders as 'cool keepsake': 'I saved hundreds of them'

Donald Trump admitted to keeping government materials as "cool" keepsakes, but he insisted he kept only the folders and not the classified documents they had contained.

The former president issued a pair of posts on his Truth Social website claiming that reports about the top-secret materials he hoarded at Mar-a-Lago and elsewhere were inaccurate, and tried out a new defense by insisting that 48 folders marked "classified" that were seized by FBI agents had been empty when he carted them off from the White House as souvenirs.

"The Fake News Media & Crooked Democrats (That’s been proven!) keep saying I had a 'large number of documents' in order to make the Biden Classified Docs look less significant," Trump posted. "When I was in the Oval Office, or elsewhere, & 'papers' were distributed to groups of people & me, they would often be in a striped paper folder with 'Classified' or 'Confidential' or another word on them. When the session was over, they would collect the paper(s), but not the folders, & I saved hundreds of them."

"Remember, these were just ordinary, inexpensive folders with various words printed on them, but they were a 'cool' keepsake," he added.

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President Joe Biden's attorneys notified the Department of Justice that some Obama-era classified materials were found at his private residence and at the Penn Biden Center, which a special counsel has been tasked with investigating, but Trump said his own actions were entirely justified.

"Perhaps the Gestapo took some of these empty folders when they Raided Mar-a-Lago, & counted them as a document, which they are not," Trump posted. "It’s also possible that the Trump Hating Marxist Thugs in charge will 'plant' documents while they’re in possession of the material. As President, and based on the Presidential Records Act & Socks Case, I did NOTHING WRONG. JOE DID!"