Immediately after a federal judge released the Dept. of Justice's detailed list of items the FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago experts agreed among the most concerning details was that there were a large number of empty folders marked "Classified."
NCRM reported the DOJ's inventory list included over 13,000 items, including over 100 documents marked with various classification headers.
Also listed were “43 Empty Folders with ‘CLASSIFIED’ Banners,” and “28 Empty Folders Labeled ‘Return to Staff Secretary/Military Aide."
Glenn Kirschner, a former federal prosecutor of 30 years, tweeted out his surprise and concern.
"OMG!" exclaimed Kirschner, who is also an MSNBC/NBC News legal analyst. "Court just released an inventory of evidence of crime seized at Mar-a-Lago."
"Dozens of EMPTY folders labeled 'Classified' or 'Return to Military Aide.' Trump didn’t pack up EMPTY folders to take with him to FLA. Things just went from bad to worse to unfathomably dangerous."
Others also expressed concern over the empty folders.
Andrew Weissmann, a former General Counsel of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who has also worked as chief of the criminal fraud section of DOJ observed: "It’s the empty classified folders that are of most concern."
"Where are the contents? Trump has not addressed that at all in all his bluster and obfuscation. What were you doing with these?" asked Weissmann, who also worked for Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Former Dept. of Defense Special Counsel Ryan Goodman wrote: "This is going to get a lot of attention too: 👉43 Empty Folders with "CLASSIFIED" Banners👈"
"Empty," he emphasized. "Must be fairly alarming to U.S. intelligence community conducting the damage assessment. Now think about how Trump's legal team is trying to keep this info from the FBI/ODNI."
National security attorney Brad Moss wrote, "Very first question the FBI would ask the person who had in their home office 43 empty folders with classified banners is 'where did the documents from those folders go????'"
And later he added: "Why. Are. There. Empty. Folders?"