Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, center left, and son Eric Trump walk near the first hole during the final round of LIV Golf Miami, at Trump National Doral Golf Club, Sunday, April 7, 2024, in Doral, Fla. Pictured in background center is valet Walt Nauta. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
As the government opposed the discovery aims of Donald Trump and his co-defendants “in their entirety” on Monday, the special counsel attached an exhibit to show that a former member of the Trump administration repeatedly advised the former president and those in his orbit, including his family members, that missing documents needed to be returned to the National Archives (NARA) or else an indictment would almost certainly follow.
The witness, identified only as Person 16, an individual who “had free access to FPOTUS [the former president of the United States] and the Oval Office, and was in the Oval Office daily” and attending briefings on the “handling of classified materials.” At the start of the Nov. 2, 2022, interview with the FBI, the witness insisted that the session not be recorded, as that would be a “far bigger risk for him in the Trump world.”
After telling the feds that Trump’s “declassified everything” response to February 2022 media reports about classified documents at Mar-a-Lago being returned to NARA was undercut by the fact there was “no standing declassification order,” Person 16 spoke about being aware as early as August 2020 that NARA was missing Kim Jong-un letters, an “Obama letter,” and a “Hurricane map.”
The witness “spoke to multiple people around FPOTUS to send the message that he needed give [sic] the stuff back, that it belonged to the U.S. Government and was not worth all of the aggravation,” the document said. Person 16 said he knew from experience at the White House that Trump “sometimes needed to be messaged the same thing from multiple people close to him,” so there was an attempt to get Trump’s children involved.
“[Person 16] was of the opinion that [redacted] had the most influence and [redacted Person 17] had more influence now given [redacted Person 15] was [redacted],” the exhibit said. “The message to the [redacted] was essentially: ‘There are issues with the boxes. They belong to do the government, talk to your dad about giving the back. It’s not worth the aggravation.”
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When that didn’t work, Person 16 went to Mar-a-Lago to visit Trump on Nov. 21, 2021 and tried again around lunch time to convince the former president to return the boxes to NARA, even though the witness did not know at the time these boxes contained classified information, the exhibit said. The witness insisted that the documents needed to be returned either way.
Trump, wearing “golf attire” in a “card room” at Mar-a-Lago, offered a “weird” response to Person 16’s renewed effort to persuade him.
“[Person 16] told FPOTUS: ‘Whatever you have, give everything back. Let them come here and get everything. Don’t give them a noble reason to indict you because they will,”” the witness said, according to the exhibit. “FPOTUS provided a ‘weird ‘you’re the man’ type of response.’”
Even still, Person 16 “walked away from the fifteen minute meeting with the impression that FPOTUS was going to return the records to NARA,” the document said, noting that the meeting was “interrupted by a MAL Club member and a much younger woman who boasted friends told her she looked like a young [redacted Person 30].”
“It was during this encounter that [Person 16] thought to himself MAL was no place for these records,” the exhibit said.
Near the end of the interview, the witness said that the former president’s circle dangled Trump co-defendant and valet Walt Nauta a pardon in 2024 if the FBI charged him for lying.
“NAUTA was told by FPOTUS’ people that this investigation was not going anywhere, that it was politically motivated, and ‘much ado about nothing,’” the exhibit continued. “NAUTA was also told that if even if he gets charges with lying to the FBI, FPOTUS will pardon him in 2024.”
Special counsel Jack Smith said in his filing that around two months after Person 16 warned Trump, 15 boxes were returned to NARA — but there were still “dozens more” at Mar-a-Lago the former president did not return.
“Some two months after that, on January 17, 2022, nearly a year after he left office and more than six months after NARA requested them, Trump released 15 boxes to be delivered to NARA by truck,” Smith said. “Although Trump knew there were dozens of boxes remaining at Mar-a-Lago, he provided no more to NARA.”
Read exhibit D here.
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