Judge questioned how Trump did not notice 'classified marked documents' in his bedroom

The judge who oversaw special counsel Jack Smith's investigation into Donald Trump's retention of classified recordsquestioned how the former president could not have noticed that he had highly sensitive documents in his bedroom in Florida, a newly unsealed ruling shows.

The March 2023 ruling by U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell pertains to documents found at Mar-a-Lago in December 2022 after Trump’s attorneys told authorities in June there were no classified files at his residence and after the FBI executed a search warrant in August of that year that turned up over 100 classified documents — some marked “secret” and “top secret.”

The post-search documents were found after Trump lawyer Timothy Parlatore arranged for personnel to sweep Trump's properties to make sure there were no other sensitive documents. The Justice Department had subpoenaed Trump in May 2022 for the return of such records.

"To be sure, the government has not provided direct evidence that the former president deliberately retained, or was even aware of, the particular classified-marked documents located by his counsel at Mar-a-Lago in December 2022," Howell wrote in her decision.

But "notably," she added, "no excuse is provided as to how the former president could miss the classified-marked documents found in his own bedroom at Mar-a-Lago."

The bedroom items were "one empty folder and another mostly empty folder marked 'Classified Evening Summary,'" the judge noted. The sweep also turned up four other documents that the judge said were misleadingly referred to as "low-level ministerial documents."

"To be clear, the four documents were responsive to the May 2022 subpoena," Howell wrote.

The remark came in a ruling where she granted the prosecution's