Aides who had worked in Donald Trump’s White House were not surprised this summer when the FBI found highly classified material in boxes at Mar-a-Lago, mixed with news clippings and other items.
They’d seen such haphazard collections before.
During his four years in office, Trump never strictly followed the rules and customs for handling sensitive government documents, according to 14 officials from his administration, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss what they called Trump’s mishandling of classified information.
He took transcripts of his calls with foreign leaders as well as photos and charts used in his intelligence briefings to his private residence with no explanation. He demanded that letters he exchanged with North Korean dictator Kim Jon Un be kept close at hand so he could show them off to visitors. Documents that would ordinarily be kept under lock and key mingled with piles of newspaper articles in Trump’s living quarters and in a dining room that he used as an informal office.
Officials and aides who worked in proximity to Trump said they are not sure how more than 300 classified documents ended up at his Mar-a-Lago estate, triggering a lengthy effort to retrieve them that has resulted in a criminal investigation. But in the waning days of his presidency, as Trump grudgingly began to pack up his belongings, he included documents that should have been sent to the National Archives and Records Administration, along with news articles and gifts he received while president, several former officials said.
What those ex-Trump aides and advisers saw in an inventory of items recovered by the FBI in August — classified documents in boxes, stored alongside newspaper and magazine articles, books and gifts — looked to them like the idiosyncratic filing system Trump used in the White House.
Trump tried to get his lawyer to say all documents were returned. The lawyer refused.
Senior aides said they tried for years to impose some order on the flow of classified information in the White House — with little success.
“The rigor I had felt at the end of meetings during the Obama administration ... where someone very carefully collected all the pieces of paper or stayed behind in the room and made sure there was nothing left — that rigor just did not exist at the end during the Trump period,” said one former official who regularly attended Situation Room meetings.
A longtime adviser who still sees Trump regularly described him as a “pack rat” and a “hoarder.” Several former aides said Trump spent his time in office flouting classification rules and intimidating staffers who might try to take secret intelligence material away from him.
“I can’t say what went wrong that resulted in some boxes ending up at Mar-a-Lago,” said a former official who knew that Trump took classified information to his White House quarters. “But you can see that as an extension of four years of accommodating the president.”
A spokesman for Trump declined to comment for this article, other than to repeat a previously issued statement in which he accused the Justice Department of leaking information to The Washington Post to hurt Trump’s image. "President Trump remains committed to defending the Constitution and the Office of the Presidency, ensuring the integrity of America for generations to come,” that statement said.
Kelly issued written guidance requiring that any document sent to the president for his review first be cleared by the staff secretary, the official in charge of keeping track of documents, as well as the chief of staff. Kelly also set up rules for what to do after Trump had seen a document.
“All paper leaving the Oval Office must be submitted to the Staff Secretary for appropriate processing,” said the guidance, a copy of which was reviewed by The Washington Post. It was the staff secretary’s job to mark the document “President Has Seen” and submit it to the Office of Records Management. “This process is vital for compliance with the Presidential Records Act,” the guidance states, referring to the law that makes White House records the property of the federal government.
Trump's Mar-a-Lago documents: A timeline
“It wasn’t perfect, but we did have a better idea of what was going and coming,” said a former senior administration official.
The White House normally establishes a “chain of custody” for classified documents, said Larry Pfeiffer, the senior director of the White House Situation Room in the Obama administration and a former CIA chief of staff. “They log [the documents], track them, give them numbers. If anyone says, ‘Hey, whatever happened to that memo given to the president?’ the [staff secretary] can say, ‘Hey, it’s in the national security adviser’s office.’ ”
Former officials credited Kelly and then-Staff Secretary Rob Porter, as well as his successor, Derek Lyons, with trying to impose some order on Trump’s chaotic ways. But it was a struggle. John Bolton, a former national security adviser to Trump, said Trump sometimes asked to keep material after intelligence briefings, with no clear pattern as to what he wanted. Sometimes, Bolton said, he would ask the president to give documents back. “It was very erratic,” he said. “Some things would catch his attention, and other things wouldn’t.”
Material on foreign nation's nuclear capabilities seized at Mar-a-Lago
Kelly said Trump “rejected the Presidential Records Act entirely.” He added that “many people would regularly say to him, ‘We have to capture these things.’ ”
“What he did doesn’t surprise me at all,” Kelly said.
Two Trump advisers said he took, or had aides take, all the documents he wanted to the private dining room or the residence. These documents were not usually closely tracked, one of these people said. One former official said some classified documents in the residence were visible to anyone passing by.
Although it was not necessarily improper for a president to take classified information to the residence to continue working and White House staffers are accustomed to adjusting to any president’s working style and preference, it was not always clear that Trump needed the documents for official business, another former official said.
They’d seen such haphazard collections before.
During his four years in office, Trump never strictly followed the rules and customs for handling sensitive government documents, according to 14 officials from his administration, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss what they called Trump’s mishandling of classified information.
He took transcripts of his calls with foreign leaders as well as photos and charts used in his intelligence briefings to his private residence with no explanation. He demanded that letters he exchanged with North Korean dictator Kim Jon Un be kept close at hand so he could show them off to visitors. Documents that would ordinarily be kept under lock and key mingled with piles of newspaper articles in Trump’s living quarters and in a dining room that he used as an informal office.
Officials and aides who worked in proximity to Trump said they are not sure how more than 300 classified documents ended up at his Mar-a-Lago estate, triggering a lengthy effort to retrieve them that has resulted in a criminal investigation. But in the waning days of his presidency, as Trump grudgingly began to pack up his belongings, he included documents that should have been sent to the National Archives and Records Administration, along with news articles and gifts he received while president, several former officials said.
What those ex-Trump aides and advisers saw in an inventory of items recovered by the FBI in August — classified documents in boxes, stored alongside newspaper and magazine articles, books and gifts — looked to them like the idiosyncratic filing system Trump used in the White House.
Trump tried to get his lawyer to say all documents were returned. The lawyer refused.
Senior aides said they tried for years to impose some order on the flow of classified information in the White House — with little success.
“The rigor I had felt at the end of meetings during the Obama administration ... where someone very carefully collected all the pieces of paper or stayed behind in the room and made sure there was nothing left — that rigor just did not exist at the end during the Trump period,” said one former official who regularly attended Situation Room meetings.
A longtime adviser who still sees Trump regularly described him as a “pack rat” and a “hoarder.” Several former aides said Trump spent his time in office flouting classification rules and intimidating staffers who might try to take secret intelligence material away from him.
“I can’t say what went wrong that resulted in some boxes ending up at Mar-a-Lago,” said a former official who knew that Trump took classified information to his White House quarters. “But you can see that as an extension of four years of accommodating the president.”
A spokesman for Trump declined to comment for this article, other than to repeat a previously issued statement in which he accused the Justice Department of leaking information to The Washington Post to hurt Trump’s image. "President Trump remains committed to defending the Constitution and the Office of the Presidency, ensuring the integrity of America for generations to come,” that statement said.
Trying to keep track
Many of Trump’s aides had not previously worked in senior government positions, and they came to the White House naive about the established procedures for handling classified information. In August 2017, White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general who had served as secretary of homeland security, tried to set things straight.Kelly issued written guidance requiring that any document sent to the president for his review first be cleared by the staff secretary, the official in charge of keeping track of documents, as well as the chief of staff. Kelly also set up rules for what to do after Trump had seen a document.
“All paper leaving the Oval Office must be submitted to the Staff Secretary for appropriate processing,” said the guidance, a copy of which was reviewed by The Washington Post. It was the staff secretary’s job to mark the document “President Has Seen” and submit it to the Office of Records Management. “This process is vital for compliance with the Presidential Records Act,” the guidance states, referring to the law that makes White House records the property of the federal government.
Trump's Mar-a-Lago documents: A timeline
“It wasn’t perfect, but we did have a better idea of what was going and coming,” said a former senior administration official.
The White House normally establishes a “chain of custody” for classified documents, said Larry Pfeiffer, the senior director of the White House Situation Room in the Obama administration and a former CIA chief of staff. “They log [the documents], track them, give them numbers. If anyone says, ‘Hey, whatever happened to that memo given to the president?’ the [staff secretary] can say, ‘Hey, it’s in the national security adviser’s office.’ ”
Former officials credited Kelly and then-Staff Secretary Rob Porter, as well as his successor, Derek Lyons, with trying to impose some order on Trump’s chaotic ways. But it was a struggle. John Bolton, a former national security adviser to Trump, said Trump sometimes asked to keep material after intelligence briefings, with no clear pattern as to what he wanted. Sometimes, Bolton said, he would ask the president to give documents back. “It was very erratic,” he said. “Some things would catch his attention, and other things wouldn’t.”
Material on foreign nation's nuclear capabilities seized at Mar-a-Lago
Kelly said Trump “rejected the Presidential Records Act entirely.” He added that “many people would regularly say to him, ‘We have to capture these things.’ ”
“What he did doesn’t surprise me at all,” Kelly said.
Two Trump advisers said he took, or had aides take, all the documents he wanted to the private dining room or the residence. These documents were not usually closely tracked, one of these people said. One former official said some classified documents in the residence were visible to anyone passing by.
Although it was not necessarily improper for a president to take classified information to the residence to continue working and White House staffers are accustomed to adjusting to any president’s working style and preference, it was not always clear that Trump needed the documents for official business, another former official said.