Inside Trump’s public bravado and private resistance over Mar-a-Lago documents

Washington
CNN
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Not long after the National Archives acknowledged in February that it had retrieved 15 boxes of presidential records from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, Trump began fielding calls from Tom Fitton, a prominent conservative activist.

Fitton, the longtime head of the legal activist group Judicial Watch, had a simple message for Trump — it was a mistake to give the records to the Archives, and his team should never have let the Archives “strong-arm” him into returning them, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

Those records belonged to Trump, Fitton argued, citing a 2012 court case involving his organization that he said gave the former President authority to do what he wanted with records from his own term in office.

The Judicial Watch president suggested to Trump that if the Archives came back, he should not give up any additional records, according to sources with knowledge of their conversations, which have not been previously reported.

While Trump continued to publicly tout his cooperation with the Archives, privately the former President began obsessing over Fitton’s arguments, complaining to aides about the 15 boxes that were handed over and becoming increasingly convinced that he should have full control over records that remained at Mar-a-Lago, according to people with knowledge of his behavior at the time.

Trump even asked Fitton at one point to brief his attorneys, said a person familiar with the matter.

“The moment Tom got in the boss’ ear, it was downhill from there,” said a person close to the former President, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.

In a phone interview with CNN, Fitton would neither confirm nor deny conversations he’s had with Trump, but noted that he has been vocal on social media and television that Trump had the right to keep the documents he took with him at the end of his presidency because they inherently were personal.

Trump’s interactions with Fitton shed new light on his evolving— and often conflicting— posture toward the Archives dating back to before he even left office and his recent reluctance to hand over more documents after initially giving up the 15 boxes in January. While he was in contact with Fitton behind the scenes, Trump continued to claim publicly that he was cooperating with government officials.

Trump didn’t completely stonewall the government as Fitton had advised, turning over some material in June following a meeting between his lawyers and federal investigators at Mar-a-Lago. But after a Trump lawyer claimed all classified material had been provided, investigators developed evidence suggesting that was not the case, leading to the August 8 search.

A similar dissonance has emerged between Trump’s private and public response to the FBI’s search of his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Publicly,…