The National Archives discovered in January that at the end of his term, former President Donald J. Trump had taken to his home at the Mar-a-Lago resort 15 boxes from the White House that contained government documents, mementos, gifts and letters. The boxes included material subject to the Presidential Records Act, which requires that all documents and records pertaining to official business be turned over to the archives.
After Mr. Trump returned the boxes to the National Archives, its archivists found documents containing “items marked as classified national security information,” the agency told Congress in February.
In April, federal authorities appeared to be in the preliminary stages of investigating the handling of the classified documents. They began a grand jury investigation and issued a subpoena to the National Archives and Records Administration for the boxes, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity. It was one of a series of requests that the Justice Department had made to the agency for records from the Trump administration, the two people said.
The investigation of the classified documents adds to an array of legal problems Mr. Trump still faces 15 months after he left office. A local prosecutor in Atlanta is investigating whether he and his allies illegally interfered with Georgia’s 2020 election results, and the New York State attorney general is investigating the finances of Mr. Trump’s company
Democrats, anti-Trump Republicans and even President Biden have been frustrated with Mr. Garland over his apparent reticence to investigate Mr. Trump for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election.
For prosecutors to prove a felony in the mishandling of classified materials, the authorities would likely need evidence showing that the person in question knowingly and intentionally broke the law. In this case that would mean proving that the person had been told that taking the information outside of secure channels would violate the law.
Certainly, Trump knew he was breaking the law. White House counsel Donald McGahn warned him about the Presidential Records Act. So did two chiefs of staff, Reince Priebus and Kelly. In 2017, internal White House memos warned against destroying presidential records, noting that such destruction is a crime. The editorial board of the Washington Post called Trump’s mutilated records, “a wrenching testimony to his penchant for wanton destruction.”
Now, the decision to move forward with an investigation into the classified documents could draw the department even deeper into the country’s political tensions. Such investigations typically take at least a year, putting Mr. Garland on a path of potentially having to conclude it at the same time Mr. Trump is running for president again.
But there have been increasing doubts about his viability as a candidate in 2024. A New York Times/Siena poll last month showed that while Mr. Trump maintained his primacy in the party, a significant number of Republicans said they would not support him in a rematch with President Biden. In that hypothetical matchup, Mr. Trump trailed President Biden, 41 percent to 44 percent.