US Justice Dept. Believes Trump Did Not Return All White House Documents, Reports Say

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The US Department of Justice believes that former President Donald Trump has not returned all the documents that he took with him when he left the White House, The New York Times reported, citing sources.

A top Justice Department official reportedly informed Trump's lawyers of this. It is not clear yet what steps the department could take to retrieve the documents it believes are still in the ex-president's possession.

The information received from the Department of Justice caused a split among Trump's lawyers over how to respond, the report said on Thursday. Some offer to bet on cooperation, which includes bringing in an outside firm to conduct a further search for documents. The others insist on a more combative stance. The more combative camp won, the report said.

In August, Trump sued the Justice Department after the search of his Florida residence, where investigators seized several dozen boxes with about 11,000 documents. The Trump team also asked Judge Aileen Cannon to appoint a special master to review the seized materials for any privileged documents and prohibit Justice Department investigators from using the materials in their probe until they were reviewed.

Trump himself claims that he declassified all the documents that he took from the White House to his estate in Mar-a-Lago in Florida as president, noting that the head of state can do this "just by thinking about it."