Former President Donald Trump wanted to trade classified documents he took from the White House with him to Mar-a-Lago for “sensitive” documents about the FBI’s investigation of his 2016 presidential campaign ties to Russia, The New York Times reports.
Trump reportedly discussed the idea with advisors as National Archives general counsel Gary Stern pressed him and his attorneys to return two dozen boxes of presidential records that he had in his possession at his Florida residence.
Trump initially insisted that the boxes contained “nothing of consequence”.
Frustrated with the Archives still demanding that he return the documents, Trump floated the idea of exchanging them for “sensitive” FBI files proving that their investigation into his 2016 campaign ties to Russia was a “hoax.”
Trump aides never actually acted on the proposal because they knew it was a “non-starter.”
According to The Times, Trump finally began going through the documents last December after his attorneys warned him that he could face serious consequences if he did not return them.
The Times reports that neither Trump nor his attorneys told officials from the National Archives that classified files were among the cache of documents he had at Mar-a-Lago. The National Archives found out after they retrieved 15 boxes in January and alerted the Department of Justice.
FBI agents executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago in August and retrieved nearly 200,000 pages of documents, some of which were classified or highly classified.
