Yet Mr. Trump returned no boxes.
By fall, Mr. Stern grew increasingly frustrated and dealt with Alex Cannon, a lawyer who had worked for the Trump Organization, the 2020 campaign, and then Mr. Trump’s Political Action Committee. Mr. Cannon had also been involved in responding to requests for documents from the congressional committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
In a conversation in late October or early November last year, Mr Stern told Mr Cannon that he had tried other means to retrieve the documents and had failed. He acknowledged that the Presidential Archives Act did not contain an enforcement mechanism, but suggested the archive had options, including the ability to ask the attorney general to help retrieve the documents, according to people briefed. discussions.
Mr. Cannon told Mr. Stern that the documents would be returned by the end of the year, the people said.
At that time, Mr. Cannon, who told others he was concerned the boxes contained documents wanted in connection with the January 6 investigation, called Mr. Trump, who insisted that the boxes contained nothing of importance.
Nonetheless, Mr. Cannon told his associates that the boxes should be returned as is, so that professional archivists could be the ones to sift through the material and put aside what they believed belonged to Mr. Trump. Additionally, Mr. Cannon thought it was possible the boxes contained classified material, according to two people briefed on the discussions, and none of the staff at Mr. Trump’s presidential office at Mar-a-Lago had a adequate security. clearances.
It was around the same time that Mr Trump floated the idea of offering the deal to return the boxes in exchange for documents he said would expose the Russia investigation as a ‘hoax’. concocted by the FBI. Mr. Trump did not seem to know. specifically what he thought the archive had – only that there were items he wanted.
Mr. Trump’s aides – acknowledging that such an exchange would be a no-start since the government had a clear right to the material Mr. Trump had taken from the White House and the Russia-related documents held by the archives remained marked as classified – never acted on the idea.