Within weeks, Trump would have new lawyers to deal with the documents, and the FBI’s attention would shift from top-secret material Trump returned to the Archives to classified items they believed he had kept in Florida. One lawyer who received the email, former White House deputy counsel Pat Philbin, would be interviewed by FBI agents who considered him a witness in the rapidly expanding investigation.
Some of Trump’s allies have blamed the rushed and haphazard packing process during Trump’s final days in office for the presence of documents the FBI found in Trump’s bedroom, office and a first-floor storage room at Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8. But the key events that led to the FBI search took place only this year, after months of slow-rolling conflict between the former president and law enforcement agencies.
Some material recovered in the search is considered extraordinarily sensitive, two people familiar with the search said, because it could reveal carefully guarded secrets about U.S. intelligence-gathering methods. One of them said the information is “among the most sensitive secrets we hold.”
This account of Trump’s effort to keep the FBI from reviewing the classified material is drawn from newly released correspondence and court filings, as well the recollections of multiple people with direct knowledge of the investigation or who were briefed on events. Many of them spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the ongoing criminal probe.
In a legal filing on Monday, Trump’s lawyers insisted that he had been cooperating with Justice Department requests. In fact, however, the narrative they laid out, as well as other documents and interviews, show that Trump ignored multiple opportunities to quietly resolve the FBI concerns by handing over all classified material in his possession — including a grand jury subpoena that Trump’s team accepted May 11. Again and again, he reacted with a familiar mix of obstinance and outrage, causing some in his orbit to fear he was essentially daring the FBI to come after him.
In a May 10 letter to Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran that was released Tuesday, acting archivist Debra Steidel Wall outlined weeks of resistance that followed the April 12 email. Trump tried to delay and thwart the FBI’s review of the records he had turned over to the Archives in January, Steidel Wall wrote, despite a finding by the Justice Department that the records included 100 classified documents comprising 700 pages of material, some of it extraordinarily sensitive information related to secret operations and programs with very limited access, on a need-to-know basis.
“It has now been four weeks since we first informed you of our intent to provide the FBI access to the boxes so that it and others in the Intelligence Community can conduct their reviews,” Steidel Wall wrote, adding that Trump’s lawyers had asked for more time to determine if the records included documents they considered protected by executive privilege.
The May 10 letter said government lawyers had concluded that executive privilege is held by the current president, not a former one, and that President Biden had delegated to Steidel Wall the decision as to whether the FBI should be allowed to view the records. “I have therefore decided not to honor the former President’s ‘protective’ claim of privilege,”…
Read More: FBI’s Mar-a-Lago search followed months of resistance, delay by Trump
