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The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) “most often asked about” Donald Trump’s doctored map of Hurricane Dorian while seeking presidential records from the ex-commander in chief after he left office, according to unclassified FBI files and emails revealed in Monday court filings.
NARA General Counsel Gary Stern vented in a July 2021 phone call that he and other records agency personnel were “pissed off” about the former president’s hoarding of the records, including the 2019 “hurricane map” and letters from North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un and former President Barack Obama, the federal filings from Trump’s classified documents case in Florida show.
Stern in a May 2021 email had demanded the return of “original correspondence” between Trump and Kim Jong-un, the letter that Obama left him on his first day in office and “roughly two dozen boxes of original Presidential records” the former president took from the White House.
“Of the missing documents, the hurricane map was the one most often asked about,” according to notes from interviews FBI agents and federal prosecutors conducted with unnamed officials, at least one of whom was identified by prosecutors as having worked in the White House Office of Records Management (WHORM).
The map that Trump displayed in a televised national address in September 2019 showed Hurricane Dorian striking a tiny portion of the coast of Alabama — though its path had been drawn longer with a black Sharpie marker.
The president had tweeted a warning days before that Alabama could be hit by the hurricane, refusing to back down from the assertion — despite internal pushback from federal officials — for six days.
Other persons familiar with the matter said that Trump was “fond of certain documents” and had kept the files close because he did not “trust the system” and had been “burned” by leaks to the press, the interview notes show.
Another who learned of NARA’s request for the documents to be handed over reportedly quipped, “NARA and what army?”
WHORM had initially sought the documents before the end of Trump’s term after one of the unnamed officials who was interviewed raised concerns about records retention during the administration.
Other documents had apparently been obtained without the president’s knowledge in the past.
“On certain occasions, White House military aides, cleaning staff, and other White House personnel would gather burn bags, trash, and other documents to provide them to WHORM,” the FBI notes of an interview with one of the officials read.
“This often required putting documents back together and attempting to fix damaged documents,” the notes state.
Once Trump left office, NARA and WHORM also enlisted the help of Attorney General Merrick Garland and President Biden’s White House Counsel’s Office in mid-2021 to help retrieve the missing files, prosecutors noted in their Monday filing.
Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows later that fall broached the subject of the missing records with the former president at Mar-a-Lago after having spoken with Jonathan Su, Biden’s deputy counsel.
An anonymous individual also warned Trump in November 2021 that he “faced possible criminal exposure if he failed to return his records to NARA,” prosecutors said.
In January 2022, the agency eventually retrieved 15 boxes of materials — including documents about the 2019 “Salute to America” military parade in Washington, D.C., Cabinet meetings, immigration issues and at least one document designated as “highly restricted.”
“The shifting accounts of the number of missing boxes—roughly 24 according to Trump’s former White House Staff Secretary, only 12 according to Trump’s [Presidential Records Act] representatives, and ultimately 15 being delivered to NARA—raised concerns about whether any comprehensive search for Presidential records had yet been done,” prosecutors argued.
NARA would later refer its concerns about the alleged retention of further potentially classified documents to the Department of Justice, leading to more back-and-forths between federal authorities and Trump’s lawyers for the materials.
In August 2022, the FBI eventually executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago that turned up more than 100 classified documents, and Trump was charged the following year with 40 criminal counts for retaining the information.
The Monday court filings come after US District Judge Aileen Cannon, who is presiding over the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith, has rejected several motions to dismiss the case from Trump’s legal team.
The former president is currently scheduled to head to trial on July 8.
