“We also understand that approximately two dozen boxes of original presidential records were kept in the White House residence during the last year of President Trump’s term and have not been transferred to NARA, despite Pat Cipollone’s decision in the final days of the administration that they should to be,” Gary Stern, the agency’s chief counsel, wrote in an email to Trump lawyers in May 2021, according to a transcript reviewed by the Washington Post. Cipollone was the former White House counsel appointed by Trump as one of his spokespeople for the Archives. A spokeswoman for Cipollone declined to comment Wednesday. The previously unreported email — sent about 100 days after the former president left with the subject “Presidential Records Help Needed” — shows how early Archives officials realized many documents were missing from the Trump White House. It also charts the myriad of efforts Archives officials made to return the documents over an 18-month period, culminating in an FBI raid earlier this month of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, Florida, residence. Stern, the chief counsel at the Archives, does not say in the email how he determined the boxes were in Trump’s possession. He wrote that he had also consulted another Trump lawyer during the final days of Trump’s presidency — without any luck. “I had also expressed this concern to Scott in recent weeks,” Stern writes in the email, referring to Trump’s attorney, Scott Gast, who is also copied on the email. In the email, Stern again asks for the documents from Trump’s residence to be returned. Gast did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Archives did not respond to a request for comment. Stern’s email to three Trump lawyers takes on an almost pleading tone at times. Cipollone is not copied on the email, which was sent to Gast and two longtime Cipollone deputies. Stern cites at least two high-profile documents the Archives knew were missing — letters from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and a letter from former President Barack Obama early in Trump’s presidency. “We know things are very chaotic, as they are always in the course of a one-year transition,” Stern writes. “…But it is absolutely necessary that we obtain and account for all presidential records.” Stern did not say in the email what the Archives thought were in the boxes at the White House residence. Throughout the fall of 2021, Stern continued to urge multiple Trump advisers to help the Archives retrieve the records, according to people familiar with the conversations, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Trump decided to give back some of the documents only after Stern told Trump officials the Archives would soon have to notify Congress, and Stern told Trump advisers he didn’t want to escalate and inform Congress, these people said. . ‘We want everything back’ was his message,” according to a Trump adviser. Trump then returned 15 boxes of documents to the Archives in early 2022, and Archives officials urged Trump’s team to continue searching for more material at the beach club. But they also referred the matter to the Justice Department after realizing there were hundreds of pages of classified material in the boxes returned to the National Archives. After extensive interviews with Trump aides, FBI officials raided Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8 and seized an additional 11 sets of classified files after executing a search warrant — adding to the large volume of classified government documents recovered from the home of the former president. The Post has previously reported on the former president’s longtime habit of retreating to his private White House residence with official documents piling up regularly. In interviews with former White House officials, they recalled sending boxes of disorganized materials to the residence with Trump’s body at the then-president’s request. Trump and his advisers claimed there was a standing declassification order on all documents moved to the residence, but several senior former administration officials said they were unaware of any such order. Trump has also complained to friends that he did not return the documents because they were his personal property and did not belong to the US government.
