Mystery of the missing docs: DOJ tells Trump lawyers that he STILL hasn’t returned all White House records – even after 11,000 files were seized from Mar-a-Lago
- A senior DOJ official told former President Donald Trump’s legal team the government doesn’t believe all the documents have been returned
- The New York Times reported Thursday that Jay Bratt, the chief of the DOJ’s counterintelligence and export-control section, gave the lawyers a heads up
- The conversation happened in the last few weeks and is the latest indication that investigators are still skeptical Trump gave up all his White House documents
A senior official at the Department of Justice told former President Donald Trump‘s legal team that the government does not believe he returned all the documents he took from the White House.
The New York Times on Thursday identified Jay Bratt, the chief of the Department of Justice’s counterintelligence and export-control section, as the individual who gave Trump’s lawyers the heads up, citing sources familiar with the matter.
The conversation happened in the last few weeks and is the latest indication that investigators are still skeptical Trump gave up all his White House documents.
A senior official at the Department of Justice told former President Donald Trump’s legal team that the government does not believe he returned all the documents he took from the White House
Authorities stand outside Mar-a-Lago, the residence and private club belonging to former President Donald Trump, in the aftermath of the FBI’s August 8 search
An image attached in a Department of Justice court filing showing some of the government documents discovered at Mar-a-Lago
Last month, staff from the National Archives and Records Administration alerted the House Oversight Committee that they were ‘not certain’ Trump surrendered all the presidential records he removed from the White House – even after the Mar-a-Lago raid.
The FBI seized roughly 11,000 documents from Trump during the August 8 search of Mar-a-Lago, the ex-president’s Florida home and resort.
The raid came after Trump and his team refused to hand over all the documents during several less brazen attempts at retrieval earlier this year.
The government found more than 300 classified documents during the search, including some with markings indicating the highest level of sensitivity.
During the raid, investigators also found dozens of empty folders that could indicate more documents could be in the ex-president’s possession.
Part of the Justice Department’s confusion comes from Trump’s request to have a ‘special master’ independently review the documents that were seized.
In a September court filing, the DOJ argued that by not having access to the documents they were unable to determine if anything else was missing.
The decision was later partially reversed by a federal appeals court.
The ex-president has since asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
Emails released Monday show the National Archives was trying to get documents back from Trump for more than a year.
In one email between Gary Stern at the National Archives and Trump’s deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin, former Trump Organization attorney Alex Cannon and Trump campaign lawyer Justin Clark from May 2021, Stern points out that NARA was missing the original letters between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Another missing document, Stern said, was the letter former President Barack Obama wrote to Trump on his first day in office.
‘It is also our understanding that roughly two dozen boxes of original Presidential records were kept in the Residence of the White House over the course of President Trump’s last year in office and have not been transferred to NARA, despite a determination by Pat Cipollone in the final days of the Administration that they need to be,’ wrote Stern, the Archives’ general counsel.
‘We know things were very chaotic, as they always are in the course of a one-term transition,’ Stern added. ‘But it is absolutely necessary that we obtain and account for all original Presidential records.’
During a public appearance Wednesday in Miami, Trump continued to rail against the Mar-a-Lago raid.
‘You probably read and heard about the document hoax. Has anyone heard about the document hoax?’ Trump said addressing the America First Works Hispanic Leadership Conference. ‘Helicopters flying over Mar-a-Lago.’
‘Well they’ve given us about $5 billion in free publicity,’ he continued.
Trump denied doing anything wrong.
‘They are targeting me because they want to silence me, silence you and silence our amazing Make America Great Again movement,’ he said.