New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman revealed on Monday evening that Donald Trump had more than 300 classified documents that were taken to his golf club in Palm Beach, Florida.
According to the report, the National Archives found about 150 documents they concluded were sensitive when they sifted through the first batch of information gathered in Jan. 2022, "helping to explain the Justice Department’s urgent response."
Trump has tried to claim that he declassified the documents in his final day of office as the boxes were being taken to Mar-a-Lago. The classification, however, doesn't matter when it comes to laws in place about taking federal property.
Trump and his allies, including Kash Patel a former staffer to Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) turned National Archives appointee for Trump, claim he can declassify anything. That has been proven false, with legal experts citing the Atomic Energy Act, which requires more than Trump to declassify documents.
"In total, the government has recovered more than 300 documents with classified markings from Mr. Trump since he left office, the people said: that first batch of documents returned in January, another set provided by Mr. Trump’s aides to the Justice Department in June and the material seized by the F.B.I. in the search this month," said the report.
"And the extent to which such a large number of highly sensitive documents remained at Mar-a-Lago for months, even as the department sought the return of all material that should have been left in government custody when Mr. Trump left office, suggested to officials that the former president or his aides had been cavalier in handling it, not fully forthcoming with investigators, or both," wrote Haberman.
Multiple sources briefed said that Trump went through the boxes himself in late 2021 before turning them over in Jan. 2022 to the National Archives.
Trump aides handed over a few dozen sensitive documents during a visit by the Justice Department in early June 2022 after a subpoena was issued. The search warrant was later issued based on the concern that there was more information and that it was highly sensitive.
When the FBI came back to Mar-a-Lago, they discovered the stolen documents were not only in the storage area previously cited, they were also in a container in a closet in his personal office, a source told Haberman.
According to Haberman, "Some of the documents retrieved in January related to the NSA, the CIA, and the FBI, across a number of national security matters, a person familiar with what was taken said."
"Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran then drafted a statement, which [Christina] Bobb, who is said to be the custodian of the documents, signed," she also wrote. "It asserted that, to the best of her knowledge, all classified material that was there had been returned, according to two people familiar with the statement."
The sign-off could put Bobb in a difficult position legally.
