Gary Stern, the General Counsel of the National Archives, visited the White House on June 8, 2023, for a meeting with Richard Sauber, Special Counsel to Biden. The indictment against President Trump alleging that he “unlawfully” retained classified documents was filed by the Justice Department on the very same day.
The record of the meeting, obtained from the Biden White House visitor logs, provides the latest evidence of the close cooperation between the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the Biden White House regarding the Trump classified documents case.
Starting in 2021, the Biden White House closely coordinated with Archives officials, likely to increase pressure on Trump to return classified documents, and collaborated with Justice Department officials to draft a criminal referral, newly unsealed court documents revealed last week.
Stern also had meetings with White House officials on at least 19 other occasions from 2021 to 2023 as his agency sought the documents retained by Trump, according to the visitor logs.
In early August, records show Stern met with then-Deputy White House Counsel Jonathan Su in the West Wing. Unsealed court records indicate that Stern would later consult with Su in January 2022 regarding his agency’s efforts to retrieve the classified memos from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property.
Su referred Stern to Department of Justice officials, Associate Deputy Attorneys General Emily Loeb and David Newman. It was from this referral that the federal case against Trump was initiated.
Shortly after Trump and his associates voluntarily returned 15 boxes of classified documents and other presidential records to the agency, Su was engaged in conversations with the FBI, DOJ, and the National Archives, as early as April 2022. However, according to the dates referenced in the court documents, these contacts are now known to have started months earlier.
The Biden White House was involved in discussions with the FBI, DOJ, and National Archives to facilitate access to the documents for investigators probing Trump’s handling of classified documents, despite publicly claiming it had no prior knowledge about the well-publicized FBI raid on Trump's Mar-a-Lago.
