Decent timeline someone made
EDIT made at 8:30 PM 8/12/2022 - I'm adding source links, since some folks asked
Timeline, for clarity:
2021
January 2021: Trump is stepping down as president and is ordered to
return all documents to NARA before leaving office.
May 2021: NARA officials contact Trump's team after realizing
several important documents were missing.
Fall 2021: NARA has not received the documents.
NARA lawyer Gary stern reaches out to Trump attorney to intervene, asking about several boxes of records apparently taken to Mar-a-Lago during Trump's relocation.
2022
It's been nearly 12 full months since he's been ordered to return all documents, and 7 months since NARA told him directly that they know documents are missing. He has not returned the documents in his possession during this time.
January 2022 - After months of discussions, NARA retrieves 15 boxes of Trump white house records.
Some of them are torn up, some reconstructed with tape. NARA says in a statement that the
boxes contain some Classified security documents.
February 2022 -
NARA asks Justice department to investigate Trump's handling of White House records, and whether he violated laws related to classified information.
April 2022 - NARA publicly acknowledges that the Justice Department is involved, and news outlets report that
prosecutors have launched a criminal probe into Trump's mishandling of classified documents. Around this time, FBI agents begin interviewing Trump aides about the handling of records.
May 2022 - News outlets report that investigators
subpoenaed NARA for access to the classified documents already obtained from Mar-A-Lago. This indicates that the Justice Department is using a grand jury in its investigation.
June 2022 - Four investigators, including a Justice Department counterintelligence official, visit Mar-A-Lago seeking info on the classified information Trump had taken to florida. During this meeting, federal officials serve a grand jury subpoena for some of the sensitive national security documents found on the premises. They take those documents with them when they leave. (
Edit note: I haven't been able to find a secondary source for this one, beyond CNN's claims.)
Still in June 2022: Trump's attorneys then receive a letter, from federal investigators, asking them to further secure the room where documents are being stored.
Trump aides add a padlock to the room. Federal Investigators serve a subpoena to the Trump investigation,
demanding surveillance video. Trump's company turns over the footage.
August 8, 2022 -
FBI executes a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, focused on the club area where Trump's offices and personal quarters were located. Federal agents remove 'about a dozen' boxes of materials from the property after this search.
Attorney General Garland revealed that he personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant.
And today the warrant dropped, including the inventory list of what was taken.
You can read it here.
Federal agents who executed the warrant did so to investigate potential crimes associated with violations of the Espionage Act, which outlaws the
unauthorized retention of national security information that could harm the United States or aid a foreign adversary; a federal law that makes it a crime to
destroy or conceal a document to obstruct a government investigation, and Section 2071, which covers
the unlawful removal of government records. - none of these laws change based on whether information was deemed to be unclassified or not.
The Espionage Act in particular, if violated can carry a penalty of up to 10 years in prison
per offense.
The search this past Monday seized 11 sets of documents in all, including some marked as “classified/TS/SCI” documents — shorthand for “top secret/sensitive compartmented information,” according to the report. SAPs like TS/SCI are created when the sharing of specific information represents a heightened threat of damaging disclosures, or when a “secret” or “top secret” classification is not deemed sufficiently protective. Documents marked thus are meant to be viewed only in secure govt. facilities.
The Washington Post also revealed an anonymous tip from individuals 'familiar with the investigation' that the FBI agents were looking for classified documents relating to nuclear weapons, though did not say if said documents had been recovered.Per the Atomic Energy Act, the president has no authority to declassify documents relating to nuclear power or weapons.
The last folks in the United States who violated both the Espionage Act and the Atomic Energy Act
were executed!