Trump Turns Over Records As Archives Threatens Congress Quiz

Worried that a trove of White House records that had been brought to Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate contained classified material, a top official in the former President's orbit warned his aides last fall: Do not touch those boxes.

Photo Insert: Trump claimed the boxes that had been brought to Mar-a-Lago "contained letters, records, newspapers, magazines and various articles" that are to be featured in his presidential library "someday."

The senior official in Trump's inner circle did not want to risk exposing sensitive materials to aides who may have lacked the appropriate security clearances, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The boxes, which were being stored at the time in Trump's personal suite at his Florida club, had landed on the National Archives and Records Administration's radar after officials there noticed that several items were missing from their catalog of Trump White House records, Gabby Orr, Pamela Brown and Paula Reid reported for CNN.

Longtime Archives lawyer Gary Stern first reached out to a person from the White House counsel's office who had been designated as the President Records Act point of contact about the record-keeping issue, hoping to locate the missing items and initiate their swift transfer back to NARA, said multiple sources familiar with the matter.

The person had served as one of Trump's impeachment defense attorneys months earlier and, as deputy counsel, was among the White House officials typically involved in ensuring records were properly preserved during the transfer of power and Trump's departure from office.

But after an extended back and forth over several months and after multiple steps taken by Trump's team to resolve the issue, Stern sought the intervention of another Trump attorney last fall as his frustration mounted over the pace of the document turnover.

In a statement on Thursday, Trump claimed the boxes that had been brought to Mar-a-Lago "contained letters, records, newspapers, magazines and various articles" that are to be featured in his presidential library "someday." In the end, it may have been a threat that ended the impasse.

At one point, the Archives notified a member of Trump's team that it planned to alert Congress and the Department of Justice of the matter if it wasn't quickly resolved, according to a person familiar with the warning.

According to a person familiar with the matter, the Archives has since asked the Justice Department to investigate. It is unclear whether the Justice Department has started an investigation.

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