A federal agency collaborated with the Trump transition team to transport two pallets of “document boxes” pertaining to President Trump's presidency to his Mar-a-Lago residence. This occurred one year before Special Counsel Jack Smith conducted a raid on the residence to search for classified documents.
Emails reveal that the General Services Administration (GSA) engaged in discussions with Trump’s team both during and after his term regarding the transfer of “pallets” of items from the president’s tenure. The GSA informed Trump’s team that there were six pallets requiring transfer from Virginia to Florida.
According to emails, of the six pallets, two were slated to be sent to Mar-a-Lago, while the remaining four were destined for a storage unit in West Palm Beach. An email previewing the shipping charges indicated that the two pallets earmarked for delivery to Mar-a-Lago from an Arlington, Virginia facility contained “document boxes.”
The duration for which the pallets remained at the Virginia facility and who had access to them is unclear.
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) was also engaged in the transition process. However, by June 2021, NARA archivist David Ferriero had reportedly grown frustrated with the perceived sluggishness of “good-faith efforts” by Trump’s team to address NARA’s concerns, as indicated in a screenshot of a filing posted by journalist Julie Kelly.
When questioned by The Federalist about whether the pallets shipped by the GSA included the documents confiscated by Smith's team during the Mar-a-Lago raid, NARA's media staff responded that the agency had “no awareness about the contents of the materials on the pallets and had no involvement in the move project referenced in the GSA emails.”
Kelly observed, “NARA was harassing Trump throughout 2021 for what they insisted were government records apparently WITHOUT contacting GSA to search dozens of boxes in their possession.”
