Former President Donald J. Trump received a subpoena this spring in the hunt for documents that federal investigators believed he had didn’t turn over earlier within the yr, when he returned boxes of fabric he had improperly taken with him upon moving out of the White House, three people conversant in the matter said.
The existence of the subpoena helps to flesh out the sequence of events that led to the search of Mr. Trump’s Florida home on Monday by F.B.I. agents searching for classified material they believed might still be there, even after efforts by the National Archives and the Justice Department to make sure that it had been returned.
The subpoena suggests that the Justice Department tried methods in need of a search warrant to account for the fabric before taking the politically explosive step of sending F.B.I. agents unannounced to Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s home and members-only club.
Two people briefed on the classified documents that investigators consider remained at Mar-a-Lago indicated that they were so sensitive in nature, and related to national security, that the Justice Department needed to act.
The subpoena was first disclosed by John Solomon, a conservative journalist who has also been designated by Mr. Trump as certainly one of his representatives to the National Archives.
The existence of the subpoena is being utilized by allies of Mr. Trump to make a case that the previous president and his team were cooperating with the Justice Department in identifying and returning the documents in query and that the search was unjustified.
The Justice Department declined to comment. Christina Bobb, a lawyer working for Mr. Trump, didn’t reply to messages. It will not be clear what precise materials the subpoena sought or what documents the previous president might need provided in response.
The subpoena factored right into a visit that Jay Bratt, the Justice Department’s top counterintelligence official, made with a small group of other federal officials to Mar-a-Lago weeks later, in early June, certainly one of the people said.
The officials met with Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Evan Corcoran. Mr. Trump, who likes to play host and has a protracted history of attempting to charm officials inquiring about his practices, also made an appearance. Throughout the visit, the officials examined a basement storage area where the previous president had stowed material that had include him from the White House.
A couple of days after the visit, Mr. Bratt emailed Mr. Corcoran and told him to further secure the remaining documents, which were kept within the storage area with a stronger padlock, certainly one of the people said. The e-mail was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.
More Coverage of the F.B.I. Search of Trump’s Home
Then, they subpoenaed surveillance footage from the club, which could have given officials a glimpse of who was coming out and in of the storage area, in keeping with an individual with knowledge of the matter. They received footage specifically from areas of the club where they believed the documents might need been stored, the person said.
Throughout the same period, investigators were in touch with a lot of Mr. Trump’s aides who had some visibility into how he stored and moved documents across the White House and who still worked for him, three people conversant in the events said.
Amongst those whom investigators reached out to was Molly Michael, Mr. Trump’s assistant within the outer Oval Office who also went to work for him at Mar-a-Lago, three people conversant in the outreach said.
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Investigators have also reached out to Derek Lyons, the previous White House staff secretary, whose last day was Dec. 18, 2020, and now not works for Mr. Trump, with questions on the method for handling documents, in keeping with an individual conversant in the outreach.
Federal officials got here to consider that Mr. Trump had not relinquished all the fabric that left the White House with him at the top of his term, in keeping with three people conversant in the investigation.
Lower than two months later, about two dozen F.B.I. agents, intentionally not wearing the blue wind breakers emblazoned with the agency’s logo normally worn during searches, appeared at Mar-a-Lago with a warrant.
The club was closed; Mr. Trump was within the Latest York area; the F.B.I. startled a crew fixing a big fountain, a maid who was dusting and a handful of Secret Service agents who guard the complex.
The search warrant was broad, allowing the agents to research all areas of the club where classified materials might need been stored. They went through the basement, Mr. Trump’s office and at the least a part of his residence on the club.
After hours of searching, they left with several boxes that weren’t filled to the brim and in at the least some cases simply contained sealed envelopes of fabric that the agents took and were otherwise empty, one person conversant in the search said.
The person said that the F.B.I. left behind a two-page manifest of what was taken.
Mr. Trump’s team has declined to reveal the contents of the search warrant. Numerous organizations, including The Latest York Times, are searching for in federal court to have it unsealed.
Some senior Republicans have been warned by allies of Mr. Trump to not proceed to be aggressive in criticizing the Justice Department and the F.B.I. over the matter since it is feasible that more damaging information related to the search will turn into public.
When Mr. Trump left the White House after refusing to concede that he had lost the 2020 election and searching for frantically to remain in power, a lot of boxes of fabric made their way from the West Wing to Florida.
Within the boxes was a mash of papers, together with items like a raincoat and golf balls, in keeping with people briefed on the contents. The National Archives tried for months after Mr. Trump left office to retrieve the fabric, engaging in lengthy discussions together with his representatives to amass what must have been properly stored by the archives under the Presidential Records Act.
When archivists recovered 15 boxes this yr, they found several pages of classified material and referred the matter to the Justice Department. But officials later got here to consider that additional classified material remained at Mar-a-Lago.
A few of Mr. Trump’s advisers have maintained that they were trying all along to cooperate with federal officials and had kept an open line of communication.
But others conversant in federal officials’ efforts to get better the documents have said that Mr. Trump resisted returning property that belonged to the federal government, despite being told that he needed to.
A few of Mr. Trump’s informal advisers outside his direct worker have insisted to him that he can claim the documents are personal items and keep them.
