Trump’s lawyers found two more types of documents in the Florida storage unit | Donald Trump

[ad_1]

Donald Trump’s lawyers found at least two more documents with classification marks inside boxes in a storage unit in Florida when they searched for items brought from the White House at the end of his administration, a source familiar with the matter said Tuesday.

The new discovery could worsen the former president’s legal exposure after the FBI seized 103 documents marked classified at his Mar-a-Lago resort in August as part of the justice department’s criminal investigation into possible unauthorized retention. of national security information and obstruction of justice.

The presence of documents marked classified at a second location beyond Mar-a-Lago, previously reported by the Washington Post, appears to confirm the justice department’s suspicions, which Trump’s lawyers were told in October, that Trump possesses additional government records.

Trump’s lawyers found the documents after the former president retained an outside firm to search four locations after a federal judge ordered his legal team to conduct a more thorough search to ensure all documents with marked classified has been returned to the government.

The outside firm ended up searching several of the Trumps’ properties, according to another source, including Trump Tower in New York, the Trump Bedminster golf club in New Jersey, the Mar-a-Lago resort and the external storage unit. in West Palm Beach, Florida , which was understood to be controlled by a federal agency.

According to emails released by the General Services Administration, a government agency that helps with presidential transitions, Trump used a storage facility in West Palm Beach to hold some materials packed from the White House and temporarily held in Virginia.

That storage facility was used to hold at least three pallets of boxes packed up by Trump White House staff and the GSA initially transported to an office space in Virginia before shipping them to Florida in September 2021, the emails show.

The contents of the boxes on the pallets do not appear to have ever been cataloged, the second source said. It is not clear if the storage facility mentioned in the emails is the same storage unit where the new documents were found but it is the place where Trumps lawyers sent two dozen boxes to the National Archives earlier this year.

The justice department declined to comment. A Trump spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Trumps’ lawyers were ordered in recent weeks to conduct a more thorough search of the former president’s holdings by Beryl Howell, the chief judge of the US district court for the District of Columbia, in a sealed order that released as part of a closed-door court battle .

The order caps a week-long process that began after the justice department expressed concern that Trump still had additional documents marked classified in his possession, possibly among other assets, after being seized by FBI seized thousands of materials at Mar-a-Lago on August 8.

Trump was served with a grand jury subpoena in May demanding the return of all government records marked classified or otherwise in the possession of the 45 Office, to which his lawyers responded by of returning a double-taped folder containing responsive documents.

The double-taped folder contained documents found by Trump attorney Evan Corcoran in a basement storage room at Mar-a-Lago, a second source told the Guardian, and had another Trump attorney, Christina Bobb, sign a caveat. attestation proving compliance with the subpoena.

But in the months that followed, the justice department developed evidence that other sensitive materials remained at Mar-a-Lago, and the FBI seized 103 documents marked classified in the Trumps’ office and basement storage room. , according to the unsealed search warrant affidavit.

The justice department then developed suspicions that Trump was potentially in possession of more government records that he should not have access to, and eventually asked Howell to intervene and order a second search of those Trump property, a second source said.

Former Florida solicitor general Christopher Kise, who was then added to Trumps legal team, suggested retaining an outside firm to conduct another search before the court order, although that idea was rejected at first by some of Trump’s more powerful lawyers on the team.

But when the court order required a more thorough search, Trump reached out to the company. The FBI is understood to have been invited to observe the search of at least one of the properties, but declined the offer, as is common for searches not conducted by law enforcement, the source said.

[ad_2]