Former President Donald Trump’s designated lawyer for dealing with the National Archives was reportedly blocked from giving them documents.
Deputy Counsel to Trump, Patrick Philbin, was his liaison with the National Archives, along with White House counsel Pat Cipollone. When the Archives notified Philbin about missing documents, his attempt to provide them the documents was reportedly blocked by Trump.
“It’s not theirs, it’s mine,” Trump reportedly told several advisers, according to a New York Times report.
The Daily Wire further reported:
The criminal investigation into Trump was launched after the National Archives discovered last year that Trump had taken government records when he left office that they were supposed to receive. Officials reviewed more than a dozen boxes that Trump returned earlier this year and discovered that many documents were marked as classified. The National Archives contacted the DOJ and the DOJ, in turn, convened a federal grand jury.
A subpoena was subsequently issued to retrieve the remaining documents. Trump’s advisers urged him to return the documents, but he decided against doing so. Investigators visited Trump’s Florida residence at Mar-a-Lago in June and were shown by Trump’s lawyers the storage area where some of the classified material was being kept. The investigators left with the classified material. After that visit, at least one of Trump’s lawyers reportedly signed a written statement saying that all the classified information had been returned.
After the meeting, those investigators told Trump’s team that they needed to take additional steps to further secure the room where some White House records were being stored. Subpoenaed surveillance footage from outside the storage room showed that boxes were shuffled in and out of the room over a two-month period. At some point during the investigation, a source close to the president gave the FBI information that led them to believe that there was additional classified material on the property.
Trump claims he declassified all documents transferred from the White House to Mar-a-Lago, blunting Justice Department claims of stealing classified documents.
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