A look at key moments in the criminal investigation into the top-secret and other documents Trump kept at Mar-a-Lago.
Jan. 20: Donald Trump leaves office after a chaotic transition in which he tried to overturn the results of the presidential election. Boxes of records that White House Counsel Pat Cipollone had decided should go to the National Archives instead are shipped to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida club and residence.
May 6: National Archives and Records Administration contacts Trump’s team to say some high-profile presidential documents appear to be missing. “We know things are very chaotic, as they always are in the course of a one-term transition,” Gary Stern, the agency’s chief counsel writes to Trump lawyers. “But it is absolutely necessary that we obtain and account for all presidential records.”
Over the next several months, archives officials repeatedly ask for the missing records and Trump resists returning them.
September: Archive officials engage with former deputy White House Counsel Pat Philbin, who indicates he has communicated with former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows about the documents, said a person familiar with the conversations, who like some others have spoken on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
December: A Trump lawyer informs the archives that aides have identified some of the missing documents, including correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that Trump had once touted as “love letters,” and a National Weather Service map of Hurricane Dorian that Trump had altered with a black Sharpie in a widely mocked attempt to claim he had not been wrong about the storm’s path. According to the person, the lawyer indicates that Trump assistant Molly Michael would assist with the handoff of documents to the archives.
Jan. 17, 2022: An archives contractor arrives at Mar-a-Lago to load 15 boxes into a truck and transport them 1,000 miles north. Among the gifts, mementos and papers sent back were the notable items the archives had requested, including a letter President Barack Obama left for Trump, part of an Inauguration Day tradition in which the outgoing president leaves a warm missive for his successor. Trump had overseen the packing process himself with great secrecy, declining to show some items even to top aides, said a person familiar with the process.
Jan. 18, 2022: According to an affidavit filed later in support of the Aug. 8, 2022, search of Mar-a-Lago, 15 boxes of records arrive at the archives.
Feb. 9: On opening the boxes, archives officials find documents clearly marked classified, intermingled with printouts of news articles, mementos and items. They make a formal referral asking the Justice Department to investigate the possible mishandling of classified records.
Feb. 18: The archivist of the United States alerts Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), chairwoman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, to the classified material and the referral. Maloney says Congress will investigate.
Feb. 24: Maloney sends a letter to the archives requesting more information on the documents.
February-March: The FBI interviews archives personnel to learn more about the return of the 15 boxes. Discussion begins about how the FBI can review the documents in those boxes in keeping with the requirements of the 1970s-era Presidential Records Act.
April 12: Stern emails Trump representatives Philbin and John Eisenberg to say that, in keeping with the records act, the White House has asked for the Justice Department and FBI to be given access to the returned documents. Stern indicates that he plans to allow the FBI to begin reviewing the documents the following week, and offers Trump’s representatives a chance to do so as well, at the archive’s secured facility.
April: Although Philbin and Eisenberg both have the proper security clearances to review the documents, each tell Trump’s team that they do not wish to become further involved in the document dispute, people familiar with the matter have said.
