TIMELINE: From End of Office to Search Warrant at Mar-a-Lago [NARA Referral and FBI Investigation]
TIMELINE: From End of Office to Search Warrant at Mar-a-Lago [NARA Referral and FBI Investigation]
Programming Note
In This Issue:
TIMELINE: From End of Office to Search Warrant at Mar-a-Lago [NARA Referral and FBI Investigation]
Programming Note
Poem for 2022.09.02
Out-and-About Photo for 2022.09.02
TIMELINE: From End of Office to Search Warrant at Mar-a-Lago [NARA Referral and FBI Investigation]
The below timeline covers the roughly 1.5+ year effort to obtain US Government records from the former President. It is primarily based on court filings and appendices that are available online here.
[January 20, 2021]
President Donald J. Trump's (DJT) term in office expires.
Due to Presidential Records being owned by the United States Government, NARA (The National Archives and Records Administration) is now the official custodian of all Presidential Records. DJT is to have had any such documents turned over to NARA, and to otherwise coordinate with them for the public release of any such documents (such as for a Presidential Library).
[“Throughout” 2021]
NARA is contacting DJT’s representatives regarding missing records.
[January 2022]
As a result of NARA’s efforts, 15 boxes of documents were turned over that had been stored at DJT’s Mar-a-Lago club house (Palm Beach, Florida).
NARA conducts an inventory of the 15 boxes and finds they contain a range of classified material.
[February 9, 2022]
NARA sends a referral regarding their findings of classified material to the Department of Justice (DOJ). The referral stated the contents from the 15 boxes included “newspapers, magazines, printed news articles, photos, miscellaneous print-outs, notes, presidential correspondence, personal and post-presidential records, and a lot of classified records. Of most significant concern was that highly classified records were unfoldered, intermixed with other records, and otherwise unproperly [sic] identified.”1
The referral piques the DOJ's interest and causes it to seek access to the 15 boxes “so that the FBI and others in the Intelligence Community could examine them.” 2
[April 12, 2022]
NARA tells DJT’s counsel that it intends to give the FBI access to the 15 boxes the following week (week of April 18).
DJT’s counsel requests an extension to consider raising privilege claims over specific documents, which NARA grants to April 29, and prevents FBI access to the 15 boxes.
[April 29, 2022]
The Department of Justice's National Security Division sends correspondence to DJT's counsel telling them it is important that the FBI (and the intelligence agencies that the material concerned) obtain immediate access to the materials because “[a]ccording 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.”3
DJT's counsel requests an additional extension to consider raising privilege claims over specific documents that would again prevent FBI access to the 15 boxes. DJT's counsel further stated that if another extension is not granted that the letter should “be construed as ‘a protective assertion of executive privilege made by counsel for the former President.’”4
[May 10, 2022]
NARA rejects DJT’s counsel’s catchall “protective assertion of executive privilege” line in the extension request via its “Wall” letter. In the letter, NARA references cases such as Nixon v. GSA, which it finds “strongly suggests that a former President may not successfully assert executive privilege ‘against the very Executive Branch in whose name the privilege is invoked.’”5 NARA also cited the lateness of such a privilege assertion, and that such a claim of executive privilege is in effect 'overuled' by the current executive (President Joe Biden) who had deferred the issue to the NARA Archivist's judgment.
NARA informs DJT’s counsel that they will be turning over the material at issue to the FBI as early as Thursday May 12, 2022.
[May 11, 2022]
FBI serves DJT's counsel with a grand jury subpoena that requested:
Any and all documents or writings in the custody or control of Donald J. Trump and/or the Office of Donald J. Trump bearing classification markings, including but not limited to the following: Top Secret, Secret, Confidential, Top Secret/SI-G/NOFORN/ORCON, Top Secret/SI-G/NOFORN, Top Secret/HCS-0/NOFORN/ORCON, Top Secret/HCS-0/NOFORN, Top Secret/HCS-P/NOFORN/ORCON, Top Secret/HCS-P/NOFORN, Top Secret/TK/NOFORN/ORCON, Top Secret/TK/NOFORN, 1-Secret/NOFORN, Confidential/NOFORN, TS, TS/SAP, TS/SI-G/NF/OC, TS/SI-G/NF, TS/HCS-0/NF/OC, TS/HCS-0/NF, TS/HCS-P/NF/OC, TS/HCS-P/NF, TS/HCS-P/SI-G, TS/HCS-P/SI/TK, TS/TK/NF/OC, TS/TK/NF, S/NF, S/FRD, S/NATO, S/SI, C, and C/NF.6
The DOJ also tells DJT's counsel that they can comply with the subpoena by turning the documents over to them at Mar-a-Lago. They also require a sworn statement from the DJT custodian of record that all the requested documents described in the grand jury subpoena were now accounted for and turned over to the US Government.
Deadline for compliance to the grand jury subpoena is set to May 24, 2022.
[May 16-18, 2022]
The FBI’s preliminary review of the 15 boxes of documents NARA received in January 2022, found the following:
“184 unique documents bearing classification markings, including 67 documents marked as CONFIDENTIAL, 92 documents marked as SECRET, and 25 documents marked as TOP SECRET.”
“Further, the FBI agents observed markings reflecting that the documents were subject to sensitive compartments and dissemination controls used to restrict access to material in the interest of national security.”
Further investigation (alluding to new evidentiary sources) suggests that “dozens of additional boxes remained at the Premises that were also likely to contain classified information.”7
DJT’s counsel requests an extension in producing documents to the grand jury subpoena. DOJ agrees to extend the period for compliance to the grand jury subpoena from May 24, 2022 to June 7, 2022.
[June 2, 2022]
DJT's counsel contacts the DOJ in the evening and says to “meet him the following day to pick up responsive documents.”8
[June 3, 2022]
At Mar-a-Lago, DJT's counsel hands over a “single Redweld envelope, double-wrapped in tape, containing the documents” to two FBI Agents and a DOJ Attorney.9 [editor's note: Redweld envelopes are those accordion-looking/expandable folders] While at Mar-a-Lago, the Department of Justice representatives are shown the ‘Storage Room’ and are told it is the only place where documents that had come from the White House were stored.
Although the three DOJ representatives were allowed to see the Storage Room at Mar-a-Lago they were not allowed by DJT’s counsel to open or examine any of the boxes that were in the Storage Room in order to verify there were no more documents responsive to the grand jury subpoena.
DJT’s counsel gave a signed statement certifying that all the documents sought by the grand jury subpoena had been turned over to the US Government.
[June 24, 2022]**
Additional grand jury subpoena served to FPOTUS counsel on June 24, 2022. Subpoena was for ground floor (basement) surveillance footage “from the time period of January 10, 2022 to present.”
[July 6, 2022]**
In response to the June 24 subpoena, “representatives of the Trump Organization provided a hard drive to FBI agents.”
[June 2022 - July 2022]
FBI reviews the documents in the Redweld envelope:
That preliminary document review revealed the following: 38 unique documents bearing classification markings, including 5 documents marked as CONFIDENTIAL, 16 documents marked as SECRET, and 17 documents marked as TOP SECRET. Further, the FBI agents observed markings reflecting sensitive compartments and dissemination controls. Counsel for the former President offered no explanation as to why boxes of government records, including 38 documents with classification markings, remained at the Premises nearly five months after the production of the Fifteen Boxes and nearly one-and-a-half years after the end of the Administration.10
The FBI investigation develops to having multiple sources of evidence indicating that the response to the May 11 grand jury subpoena was incomplete, and that documents were covertly moved and stored outside the storage room and were “not returned prior to counsel's review.”
[August 5, 2022]
The FBI applies for, and is granted, a search warrant for areas at Mar-a-Lago that the former President or his staff have access. The warrant did not allow the searching of Mar-a-Lago club houses or private suites that belong to other club members or club guests. The warrant application lists three criminal statutes along with brief description: 18 U.S.C. § 793 (Willful retention of national defense information); 18 U.S.C. § 2071 (Concealment or removal of government records); and 18 U.S.C. § 1519 (Obstruction of federal investigation).11
[August 8, 2022]
Search of DJT’s Mar-a-Lago club house is performed with agents in casual clothes (no FBI jackets). The FBI notifies secret service beforehand and is in communication with DJT’s Counsel.
The Detailed Property Inventory lists 33 seized ‘items,’ meaning 27 boxes/containers and 6 document collections. The item breakdown appears similar to the initial 15 boxes recovered by NARA in January: a mixed allocation of media and classified documents. Classified documents were also found stored in DJT's office desk drawers mixed with personal items. From the office, 1 box and 6 document collections were seized. Inventory for the box from the office - Item #2 - is shown below.12
A redacted evidence collections photograph (Exhibit E in a government response filing) illustrates classified documents mixed in with other kinds of media documents in a box, such as framed Time magazine covers.13
[Present]
As of this posting, the FBI has concluded a preliminary review of seized documents that were not pulled by the “filter protocols” (such as potentially privileged documents identified by the ‘taint’ team).14
The intelligence community is conducting their own review of relevant documents.
FBI throws discovery shade at DJT’s counsel in its response to a Special Master filing on August 30th [emphasis added]:
That the FBI, in a matter of hours, recovered twice as many documents with classification markings as the “diligent search” that the former President’s counsel and other representatives had weeks to perform calls into serious question the representations made in the June 3 certification and casts doubt on the extent of cooperation in this matter.15
No criminal indictments relating to this matter have been announced at the time of this post. Court filings to date involve motions to unseal investigation documents and requests that are in keeping with prior extension/delay behavior from DJT’s counsel. Much of the investigation still remains secret as to the contents of the classified documents, and what the documents may have been doing there. I intend to table this matter for now, and may revisit the matter again if it gets to an indictment stage.
**[Updated on 2022.09.16 to include more information from the more unsealed affidavit for probable clause16 — additional subpoena that resulted in surveillance footage]**
Programming Note
Dear [G]Press Reader,
I wanted to let you know about upcoming programming changes here at [G]Press. I am going to be making a shift towards more ‘evergreen content,’ such as book reviews, essays, etc.
I think the current [G]Press format lends itself well to encapsulations of certain events, and the January 6th Committee Hearings will still get covered when they come back. However, [G]Press is not a Trump-legal-troubles tracker site, nor is it a political horserace blog. There are so many places on the Internet (and elsewhere) that can give you second-to-second coverage of the latest updates in court filings, social media posts, or poll results. Also, there are certain topics where occasionally something has to be changed last minute because something drops on a Thursday or Friday (when [G]Press goes out). One goal for this new programming emphasis is to create content that is less dependent on what is happening in the 48 hours prior to [G]Press going out.
Thank you all for reading! I have appreciated the feedback I have received so far. I enjoy writing for you all, and hope you enjoy the upcoming content.
Regards,
Garrett
Poem for 2022.09.02
Wasps prowl and hover
Dry grass lays on hard soil
Lake sinks in clay bowl
Out And About Photo for 2022.09.02
Looking out at left field during Replay Review. M’s win 3-2 in 11 innings.
Footnotes for 2022.09.02
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763.48.0_1.pdf
at page 5
Id.
https://www.archives.gov/files/foia/wall-letter-to-evan-corcoran-re-trump-boxes-05.10.2022.pdf
at page 2
Id.
Id. at page 3
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763.48.1_7.pdf
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763.48.0_1.pdf
at page 7
Id. at page 8
Id. at page 9
Id. at page 10
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.617854/gov.uscourts.flsd.617854.57.0.pdf
at page 3
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22274264/read-full-list-of-documents-seized-from-mar-a-lago.pdf
Exhibit A
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763.48.1_7.pdf
Attachment F
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763.48.0_1.pdf
at page 12
Id. at page 13
**Indexed version of the latest unsealings of the affidavit for probable cause by Marcy Wheeler: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22343178-220805-affidavit-less-redacted-220914 — [Added 2022.09.16]