One of former President Donald Trump‘s lawyers refused an order to falsely tell the National Archives that Trump had returned all the White House documents he took to Mar-a-Lago when he sent back the initial 15 boxes.
The 15 missing boxes sparked the Justice Department’s investigation into whether or not Trump mishandled classified White House documents in violation of the Presidential Records Act, which requires presidents to turn in all notes, records and communications that they touched to the National Archives at the end of their time in office.
The new report states that attorney Alex Cannon did not relay Trump’s message because “he was not sure that statement was true” and was “uncomfortable” claiming something that might be false, a source told the Washington Post.
After Cannon told Trump he couldn’t do what was asked of him, Trump came up with a statement to be released publicly that announced he had returned all the documents. At the advice of his aides, Trump ended up releasing a varied statement that said documents had been returned “on a very friendly basis,” but did not mention that all the documents had been given back.
In June, Trump lawyers returned more documents in a meeting with the National Archives and signed an affidavit stating that all documents had been handed over.
This came before the FBI executed a search warrant on Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida, residence in early August where they found 184 classified documents“including 67 documents marked as CONFIDENTIAL, 92 documents marked as SECRET and 25 documents marked as TOP SECRET.”
Trump maintains that the FBI planted the evidence there, though he has not offered any proof of this.
