The written statement followed a June 3 visit 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 statement, which has not been previously reported, is a possible indication that Mr. Trump or his team were not fully briefed with federal investigators about the material. And it could explain why a possible criminal obstruction violation was cited by the department as the basis for seeking the search warrant used to conduct the day-long search of the former president’s home on Monday, an extraordinary step that caused a political uproar. waves. It also helps further explain the sequence of events that led to the Justice Department’s decision to launch the investigation after months of trying to resolve the issue through discussions with Mr. Trump and his team. An inventory of material taken from Mr Trump’s home released on Friday showed FBI agents had seized 11 sets of documents during the search with some sort of confidential or secret marking on them, including some marked “classified/TS/SCI” — short for “Top Secret/Sensitive Compartment Information.” Information categorized this way is intended for viewing only at a secure government facility. The search included not only the storage area where boxes of material known to the Justice Department were kept, but also Mr. Trump’s office and residence. The search warrant and filing unsealed Friday did not say where at the Mar-a-Lago complex the documents marked classified were found. Mr Trump said on Friday that he had declassified all material in his possession while still in office. He produced no documentation that he had done so. A spokesman for the former president, Taylor Budowich, said Saturday: “Like every Democratic witch-hunt before it, the water in this unprecedented and unnecessary raid is being carried by a media willing to run with insinuating leaks, anonymous sources and not hard facts.” ». The search warrant said FBI agents were conducting the investigation to look for evidence of possible violations of the Espionage Act and a law prohibiting the illegal taking or destruction of government records or documents, as well as the suppression act. No one has been charged in the case, and a search warrant alone doesn’t mean anyone will be. Last year, National Archives officials discovered that Mr. Trump had taken a number of documents and other government materials with him when he left the White House at the end of his tumultuous tenure in January 2021. That material was supposed to have been sent to the archives. under the terms of the Presidential Records Act.
More coverage of the FBI investigation into Trump’s home
Mr Trump returned 15 boxes of material in January this year. When archivists reviewed the material, they found several pages of classified documents and referred the matter to the Department of Justice, which launched an investigation and convened a grand jury. In the spring, the Justice Department subpoenaed Mr. Trump seeking further documents believed to be in his possession. He was repeatedly asked by advisers to return what was left, despite his desire to keep some documents. In an effort to resolve the dispute, Mr. Bratt and other officials visited Mar-a-Lago in early June, meeting briefly with Mr. Trump. Two of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, M. Evan Corcoran and Christina Bobb, spoke with Mr. Bratt and a handful of investigators he traveled with, people briefed on the meeting said.
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Mr. Corcoran and Ms. Bobb showed Bratt and his team boxes that held material Mr. Trump had taken from the White House and kept in storage, the people said. According to two people briefed on the visit, Mr. Bratt and his team left with additional material marked classified, and around that time they also received a written statement from a Trump lawyer asserting that all material marked as graded in the boxes had been delivered. Shortly after the meeting, according to people briefed on the matter, Mr. Bratt sent Mr. Corcoran an email telling him to get a more secure lock for the room. Mr Trump’s team complied. The Justice Department also subpoenaed surveillance video from Mar-a-Lago, including views from outside the warehouse. According to a person briefed on the matter, the video raised concerns among investigators about the handling of the material. It is not clear what time period the video is from. In recent months, investigators have been in contact with about half a dozen of Mr. Trump’s current aides who had knowledge of how the documents were handled, said two people briefed on the approaches. At least one witness provided investigators with information that led them to want to further press Mr. Trump for material, according to a person familiar with the investigation. Concern about Mr. Trump’s cavalier handling of classified information dates back to the early days of his administration. When Mr Trump left office, President Biden quickly took the unusual step of barring him from the intelligence briefings traditionally provided to former presidents, saying Mr Trump could not be trusted because of his “erratic behaviour”. . The security of classified information at Mar-a-Lago also preoccupied government officials even when Mr. Trump was in office. During his presidency, the administration built what is known as a SCIF – a compartmented sensitive intelligence facility – for Mr Trump to use while at the club. On Thursday, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland made a public statement saying he had personally authorized the execution of a search warrant at Mr. Trump’s property and said the Justice Department would have made such a move only after it had tried less intrusive measures. Shortly before Mr. Garland made the announcement, a person close to Mr. Trump contacted a Justice Department official to relay a message from the former president to the attorney general. Mr. Trump wanted Mr. Garland to know that he checked in with people around the country and found that they were furious about the investigation. “The country is on fire,” Mr. Trump said, according to a person familiar with the exchange. “What can I do to reduce the heat?” The next day, as a judge unsealed the warrant and the list of items taken by the FBI, Mr. Trump alternately claimed he had done nothing wrong and also made the unsubstantiated claim that officials might have planted evidence. Katie Benner contributed reporting.
