DOJ told Trump lawyers he has NOT returned all White House documents

A senior Justice Department official told former President Donald Trump’s legal team that the administration does not believe he has returned any documents he took from the White House.

The New York Times on Thursday identified Jay Bratt, the Justice Department’s head of counterintelligence and export control, as the person who gave Trump’s lawyers the heads-up, citing sources familiar with the case.

The conversation has taken place in recent weeks and is the latest indication that researchers are still skeptical. Trump has given up all his White House documents.

Authorities stand outside Mar-a-Lago, the residence and private club of former President Donald Trump, in the wake of the FBI’s Aug. 8 search.

An image attached to a Justice Department court file showing some government documents held in Mar-a-Lago. have been discovered

Last month, officials at the National Archives and Records Administration warned the House Oversight Committee that they were “unsure” that Trump had turned in all the presidential records he removed from the White House — even after the Mar-a-Lago raid.

The FBI seized about 11,000 documents from Trump during the Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago, the ex-president’s Florida home and resort.

The raid came after Trump and his team refused to hand over all the documents earlier this year during several less brutal attempts to recover them.

The government found more than 300 classified documents during the search, including some with markings indicating the highest level of sensitivity.

During the raid, investigators also found dozens of empty folders that could indicate more documents may be in the ex-president’s possession.

Some of the confusion at the Justice Department stems from Trump’s request to have a “special master” independently review the seized documents.

In a September lawsuit, the DOJ argued that by not having access to the documents, they could not determine whether anything else was missing.

The decision was later partially reversed by a federal appeals court.

The ex-president has since asked the Supreme Court to intervene.

Emails released Monday show that the National Archives had been trying to get documents back from Trump for more than a year.

In a May 2021 email between Gary Stern of the National Archives and Trump’s deputy White House adviser Patrick Philbin, former Trump Organization attorney Alex Cannon and Trump campaign attorney Justin Clark, Stern points out that NARA’s original letters between Trump and North Korea missed. leader Kim Jong Un.

Another missing document, Stern said, was the letter former President Barack Obama wrote to Trump on his first day in office.

“We also understand that about two dozen boxes of original presidential documents have been kept at the White House residence over the course of President Trump’s past year and have not been turned over to NARA, despite a decision by Pat Cipollone in the last days. of the administration they should be,” wrote Stern, the Archives’ general counsel.

“We know things were very chaotic, as always in the course of a one-term transition,” Stern added. “But it is imperative that we obtain and account for all original presidential documents.”

During a public appearance Wednesday in Miami, Trump continued to protest the Mar-a-Lago raid.

“You’ve probably read and heard about the document hoax. Has anyone heard anything about the document fraud?’ Trump said addressing the America First Works Hispanic Leadership Conference. “Helicopters fly over Mar-a-Lago.”

“Well, they gave us about $5 billion in free publicity,” he continued.

Trump denied doing anything wrong.

“They’re targeting me because they want to silence me, silence you and silence our amazing Make America Great Again movement,” he said.