An employee of Donald Trump told the FBI that the former president ordered that boxes of records at his Mar-a-Lago residence be moved after receiving a government subpoena demanding their return, according to the Washington Post.
The unidentified employee told federal agents that Trump ordered that the boxes be moved out of a basement storage room into his residence at Mar-a-Lago after his legal team received a subpoena in May for classified documents.
FBI agents executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago in August and recovered 11,000 documents, including about 100 marked as classified.
In a court filing later that month, the Department of Justice said documents were “likely concealed and removed” from a storage room at Mar-a-Lago as part of an effort to “obstruct” the FBI’s investigation.
The witness initially denied handling the documents but changed their story in a second interview with federal agents. The Department of Justice also has surveillance footage showing a staffer moving boxes out of the storage room.
The witness testimony and the footage may be the strongest evidence investigators have to prove that the former president obstructed justice. Trump is also under investigation for destruction of government records and mishandling of classified information.
A report from The New York Times last week suggests that the DOJ is concerned about the possibility that Trump may still be in possession of classified documents.
