National Archives Retrieved 700 Pages of Classified Files From Mar-a-Lago in January, Letter Reveals

Former US President Donald Trump has tried to protect his papers from one government inquiry after another through the repeated assertion of executive privilege, or his right as head of state to maintain confidential communications. However, the Supreme Court has set definite limits on what the rule can and cannot protect from scrutiny.

A newly released letter by the US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has revealed that a previous seizure of missing files from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate included 700 pages marked classified.

The letter is dated May 10 and was sent by Acting Archivist of the United States Debra Steidel Wall to Evan Corcoran, one of Trump’s lawyers. It is concerned with the January transfer of 15 boxes of missing files, which it notes included “items marked as classified national security information, up to the level of Top Secret and including Sensitive Compartmented Information [TS/SCI] and Special Access Program materials,” the highest possible classification.

However, most illuminating is a quote in the letter from another letter sent to Corcoran by the Department of Justice’s National Security Division two weeks earlier.

“There are important national security interests in the FBI and others in the Intelligence Community getting access to these materials. According to NARA, among the materials in the boxes are over 100 documents with classification markings, comprising more than 700 pages. Some include the highest levels of classification, including Special Access Program (SAP) materials,” the DOJ letter said, according to NARA.

It continues: “Access to the materials is not only necessary for purposes of our ongoing criminal investigation, but the Executive Branch must also conduct an assessment of the potential damage resulting from the apparent manner in which these materials were stored and transported and take any necessary remedial steps. Accordingly, we are seeking immediate access to these materials so as to facilitate the necessary assessments that need to be conducted within the Executive Branch.”

According to Wall, Trump’s lawyer asked for additional time to review the materials in question “in order to ascertain whether any specific document is subject to privilege” so that Trump could “assert a claim of constitutionally based privilege” if he so desired. Corcoran reportedly said that his letter to NARA should itself be considered an assertion of executive privilege by Trump.

Wall then notes that, after consulting with the assistant attorney general, she has learned that “there is no precedent for an assertion of executive privilege by a former President against an incumbent President to prevent the latter from obtaining from NARA Presidential records belonging to the Federal Government where ‘such records contain information that is needed for the conduct of current business of the incumbent President’s office and that is not otherwise available.’” [emphasis in original]

The New York Times reported earlier on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter, that in the wake of the January seizure by NARA, officials suspected that more classified documents might still be at Mar-a-Lago, the resort that served as Trump’s de facto Versailles during his presidency.

Following witness interviews in May, Jay Bratt, the head of the DOJ’s counterespionage section, traveled to Mar-a-Lago on June 3, where he met with Corcoran and Christina Bobb, and with Trump’s lawyers, who showed him more boxes of files in a storage area of the mansion. Bratt reportedly returned to Washington with a “sheaf” of classified files and a sworn statement by Bobb that it was, to the best of her knowledge, the last of the classified materials kept there.

However, the DOJ suspected there might be even more files at Mar-a-Lago, so it subpoenaed security camera footage from the mansion that revealed people moving boxes of documents around. Another subpoena for the documents followed, and on August 8, a raid by FBI agents that seized 26 boxes of files, including 150 classified files up to TS/SCI level of secrecy. Those reportedly included files pertaining to US nuclear weapons, although that has not been confirmed by any governmental authority.

The unsealed search warrant revealed that the August 8 raid was authorized by Attorney General Merrick Garland over concerns of violations of the 1917 Espionage Act, mishandling of documents, and obstruction of justice. However, that doesn’t mean Trump will necessarily be charged under one of those statutes.