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https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/13/trump-mar-a-lago-search/)
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According to the search warrant, agents at Mar-a-Lago were seeking evidence of three potential violations of federal statutes: a section of the Espionage Act that makes it a crime to possess or share national defense secrets without authorization, a law against destroying or concealing documents to thwart an investigation, and a law against stealing, destroying or mutilating government records.
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Immediately after the search, Trump seemed to believe the FBI had played into his hands. Instead of exhibiting any concern, two people who spoke to him Monday evening both reported that Trump was “upbeat,” convinced the Justice Department had overreached and would cause Republicans to rally to his cause and help him regain the presidency in 2024.
“He feels it's a political coup for him,” said one friend, who spoke to Trump repeatedly during the week. Like many others interviewed for this article, the person spoke on the condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the criminal probe.
By Friday, however, the unsealed court records showed agents had
seized 11 sets of classified documents, among other things. Republicans' howls of protest became somewhat more muted, and people around Trump said his buoyant mood at times turned dark.
The fight over documents taken from the White House when Trump left office had been brewing for well over a year. “This has been like a pot of water that very slowly simmers, and now it's making that noise where it hits the hot burner,” said a person involved with the dispute.
In the spring of 2021, the National Archives and Records Administration, the government agency charged by law with maintaining the papers of former presidents, alerted Trump's team to a problem. In going through materials transferred from the White House in the chaotic final days of Trump's presidency, officials had noticed that certain high-profile documents were missing. Trump's correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that he had termed “love letters.” A National Weather Service map of Hurricane Dorian, which Trump had famously marked up with a black Sharpie pen to extend to Alabama.
Under the Presidential Records Act, the items belonged to the American people. The Archives asked for them back.
People familiar with those initial conversations said Trump was hesitant to return the documents, dragging his feet for months as officials grew peeved and eventually threatened to alert Congress or the Justice Department to his reticence.
On Jan. 17 of this year, Trump relented, allowing a contractor for the Archives to load up 15 boxes at Mar-a-Lago and truck them north to a facility in Maryland. The boxes contained some of the notable items of the Trump presidency that Archives officials had sought.
But as Archives officials sifted through the recovered documents, they began to suspect some records were still missing. They also realized some of the returned material was clearly classified, including highly sensitive signals intelligence — intercepted electronic communications such as emails and phone calls of foreign leaders.All of this raised a distressing possibility: Might there still be classified records tucked away at Trump's private Florida club?
Although presidents have unrestricted power to declassify America's secrets, they lose that power as soon as they leave office.
By February, Archives officials had formally referred the matter to the Justice Department.
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At first, Archives officials believed the FBI wasn't taking the documents issue seriously and grew frustrated, according to people familiar with the document dispute.
But agents had interviewed Trump's current and former advisers, asking them how the boxes taken to Mar-a-Lago were packed, what material was in them, who was responsible for the packing and what might still be at the Florida club, according to a person who was questioned.
“They interviewed almost everyone who worked for him,” a Trump adviser said.
Then, the Justice Department slapped Trump with a grand jury subpoena.
Bobb, a Trump lawyer, said Trump's legal team embarked on a thorough review of all the presidential material still at Mar-a-Lago, including what she told The Washington Post were two dozen to three dozen boxes of documents held in a storage room on the first floor of the club, below areas open to the public. She told Fox News's Laura Ingraham that the lawyers had identified all the documents they believed could be considered government property. “We turned over everything that we found,” she said.
But as discussions progressed, some law enforcement officials came to suspect Trump's representatives were not being truthful at times — and that despite the months of conversations, Trump was still holding on to documents and other items that properly belonged with the Archives.[...]
Though Trump has styled the Florida facility as a presidential home, and it is secured by the Secret Service, law enforcement knew that it was hardly the kind of hardened government installation suited to house secret documents.
In addition to Trump's private quarters, the club includes a dining room, pool, tennis courts and spa, all accessible to its several hundred members during the winter months. A ballroom can be booked for weddings, galas and other events. The perils of securing the facility were been made clear in 2019, when a Chinese national, carrying phones and other electronic devices, was arrested after getting past a reception area by saying she was headed to the pool.
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Two days earlier, on Friday, a federal magistrate judge in West Palm Beach had approved the search warrant. That meant the judge had reviewed a sealed filing describing steps taken in the investigation so far and found there was probable cause that evidence of a crime would be located at the 17-acre club property.
