Trump lawyer claimed material returned

It's a possible indication Trump or team not forthcoming on secret material

NEW YORK » At least one lawyer for former President Donald Trump signed a written statement in June asserting that all material marked as classified and held in boxes in a storage area at Trump’s Mar-a-lago, Florida, residence and club had been returned to the government, four people with knowledge of the document said.

The written declaration was made after a visit June 3 to Mar-a-lago by Jay I. Bratt, the top counterintelligence official in the Justice Department’s national security division.

The existence of the signed declaration, which has not previously been reported, is a possible indication that Trump or his team were not fully forthcoming with federal investigators about the material. And it could help explain why a potential violation of a criminal statute related to obstruction was cited by the department as one basis for seeking the warrant used to carry out the daylong search of the former president’s home Monday.

It also helps to further explain the sequence of events that prompted the Justice Department’s decision to conduct the search after months in which it had tried to resolve the matter through discussions with Trump and his team.

An inventory of the material taken from Trump’s home that was released Friday showed that FBI agents seized 11 sets of documents during the search with some type of confidential or secret marking on them, including some marked as “classified/ TS/SCI” — shorthand for “top secret/sensitive compartmented information.” Information categorized in that fashion is meant to be viewed only in a secure government facility.

The search encompassed not just the storage area but also Trump’s office and residence.