Classified files found at Trump site, insider says
New discovery made at storage unit in Fla. during wider search
Former President Donald Trump hired people to search four properties after being directed by a federal judge to look harder for any classified material still in his possession, and they found at least two documents with classified markings inside a sealed box in one of the locations, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Trump’s search team discovered the documents at a federally run storage site in West Palm Beach, Florida, the person said, prompting his lawyers to notify the Justice Department about them.
The New York Times reported in October that Justice Department officials had told the former president’s lawyers that they believed he might have more classified materials that were not returned in response to a subpoena issued in May. The FBI searched Mar-a-lago, Trump’s private club and residence in Florida, in August for additional classified documents and other presidential records.
People close to Trump had said earlier Wednesday that no classified material had been found during the searches, a claim that was later proved incorrect. The Washington Post first reported on the locating of the two additional documents, as well as the searches of the properties.
After the warning from the Justice Department, a debate ensued among Trump’s lawyers about whether to bring in an independent firm to conduct a search.
The discovery of the documents at the storage unit, maintained by the federal General Services Administration, came during a series of wider searches that were completed around Thanksgiving
and conducted at Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey; at Trump Tower in New York; and in a storage closet at Mar-a-lago, according to two people familiar with the events.
Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump, said in a statement that the former
president and “his counsel continue to be cooperative and transparent, despite the unprecedented, illegal and unwarranted attack against President Trump and his family by the weaponized Department of Justice.”
The department is investigating the former president’s handling of thousands of government documents, including more than 300 classified ones, that were taken from the White House at the end of his term and were found at Mar-a-lago. Prosecutors are also seeking to determine whether Trump obstructed the government’s repeated efforts to retrieve the materials.
When the Justice Department warned that it believed Trump still had documents in his possession, a lawyer whom he had hired a short time earlier, Christopher Kise, suggested along with other lawyers working for Trump that they engage an outside firm, according to people familiar with the events.
A cadre of other Trump lawyers were resistant to the idea; among them was Boris Epshteyn, a communications adviser who has positioned himself as an in-house counsel on some of Trump’s legal entanglements. The dispute led to Kise’s standing in Trump’s circle diminishing for weeks, according to several people close to the former president.
More recently, Chief
Judge Beryl Howell of U.S. District Court in Washington, who oversees grand jury investigations, directed Trump’s lawyers to essentially search more carefully for any remaining documents. Other lawyers in Trump’s circle took on the issue and hired a firm, according to one of the people familiar with the matter.
But while the Justice Department had continued to have questions about documents that might remain at Mar-a-lago — and while some people close to Trump believed another search warrant might be executed — a person familiar with the discussions among federal officials said there was no recent probable cause by which to obtain a warrant for Bedminster or Trump Tower.
The National Archives repeatedly asked last year about the status of some materials that it should have received.
Alex Cannon, a lawyer who had worked with Trump in various capacities, became involved in fall 2021 and tried to help archives officials retrieve the material.
At one point, as Trump sought National Archives documents related to the investigation into whether his 2016 campaign conspired with Russian officials, he proposed that his lawyers suggest a trade with the agency: what he sought in exchange for the documents he had.
The lawyers declined to engage that suggestion.