Trump advisors did not think NARA dust-up would ‘snowball’ into FBI investigation: report

Advisors to Donald Trump thought his battle with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) was over in January when 15 boxes of government records were recovered from Mar-a-Lago and did not anticipate that it would expand to an investigation by the FBI, according to a new report by The Washington Post.

"In the nearly three weeks since the FBI searched former president Donald Trump’s Florida home to recover classified documents, the National Archives and Records Administration has become the target of a rash of threats and vitriol, according to people familiar with the situation. Civil servants tasked by law with preserving and securing the U.S. government’s records were rattled," the newspaper reported. "On Wednesday, the agency’s head sent an email to the staff. Though academic and suffuse with legal references, the message from acting archivist Debra Steidel Wall was simple: Stay above the fray and stick to the mission."

NARA's motto, "Littera Scripta Manet" is Latin for "the written word remains."

"Archives officials have emailed, called and cajoled the former president and his representatives to follow the law and return the documents. When the Archives recovered 15 boxes from Mar-a-Lago in January, agency officials found a mess of disorganized papers lacking any inventory. Highly classified material was mixed in with newspaper clippings and dinner menus. And Archives officials believed more items were still missing," The Post reported. "What happened next was an extraordinary step for America’s record keepers: they referred the matterto the Justice Department, opening a dramatic new chapter in what had been a quietly simmering dispute."

Trump advisors were reportedly caught flat-footed by the involvement of the FBI, with one advisor thinking the situation was resolved in January.

"I really thought that was the end of the story," the advisor said. "We assumed he’d given the boxes back.”

But it was not over.

"Trump’s advisers only realized it was ballooning into a bigger issue when the Archives said that they suspected even more items were missing. “But they wouldn’t tell us what, they said they weren’t entirely sure — they just thought everything hadn’t been given back,” this person added. 'No one saw the Archives referring anything to the FBI.' But the Archive’s work may not yet be done: Some NARA officials believe that there might still be more records missing, according to a person familiar with the matter."

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Read the full report.