The crux of the documents case: Trump’s attachment to his boxes

He could point to specific boxes he wanted to take with him on Air Force One when he traveled, and refuse to bring others, pretending to be aware of the contents in the boxes he chose, both officials said.

The same was true when Mr. Trump left the White House, according to a person briefed on his conduct. He knew the contents of the boxes around him. Some assistants periodically encouraged him to condense the number he had in his immediate environment. Another person familiar with Mr Trump’s habits said that when a box was full, aides for the past two years would take it away and put it away and bring him a new one.

The charging document includes photos showing how many dozens of those cardboard boxes Mr. Trump had collected. They’re piled up on a podium in Mar-a-Lago, crammed into a storage room, even stacked in a bathroom, with some behind a shower curtain.

At his club in Bedminster, NJ, on Tuesday night, hours after he was indicted in a Miami courtroom, Trump urged several hundred supporters that the boxes contained “newspapers, newspaper clippings” and “thousands upon thousands of photos of the White House.” ,’ as well as ‘apparel, memorabilia and much, much more’.

“I hadn’t had a chance to go through all the boxes,” Trump said. “It is a long, tedious job, it takes a long time. I was willing to do that, but I have a very busy life.”

That claim — that the boxes contained mostly personal items such as clothing and that Mr. Trump didn’t know exactly what was inside — he had made to his own advisers by the second half of 2021.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers took up a similar argument in a letter sent to Congress in April, claiming that Mr. Trump had little to do with the way the documents were packed and shipped to Florida after his had left office. In the letter, the lawyers claimed that “institutional processes, rather than an intentional decision by Mr. Trump,” led to classified material leaving the White House.