(CN) — An associate of Donald Trump warned the former president in November 2021 he risked prosecution if he refused to return records he had taken from the White House.
“Whatever you have, give everything back,” the unnamed associate told the former president, according to a FBI interview summary. “Let them come here and get everything. Don’t give them a noble reason to indict you, because they will.”
The prescient warning was detailed in unsealed records filed in Fort Pierce, Florida, where Trump is battling a 40-count indictment accusing him of mishandling classified documents stored at his Mar-a-Lago resort. Other documents unsealed on Monday summarize FBI interviews with a White House records custodian and a former White House official.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, issued an order earlier in April unsealing hundreds of pages of discovery materials. Initially attached as sealed exhibits to a motion filed in January, Cannon determined the records should be made public, minus the names of potential witnesses and other identifying information.
The Trump associate who issued the warning is identified in the records as Person 16. He described meeting the former president in the library at Mar-a-Lago. With a bar and television, he told agents it was more like a card room.
The former president offered a “weird ‘you’re the man’ type of response,” to the warning, Person 16 recalled. He told the agents he left thinking the president would return the records.
A photo-seeking couple interrupted the president during their 15-minute meeting, Person 16 told agents. He said he remembered thinking that it was evidence the resort was not a secure place for White House records.
Person 16 said he asked others around the former president to encourage him to return the materials, including at least one of the president’s children. He recalled telling the family member: “There are issues with the boxes. They belong to the government. Talk to your dad about giving them back. It’s not worth the aggravation.”
Person 16 told agents he had not spoken to Trump’s codefendant, Walt Nauta, since they left the White House, where Nauta worked as a valet. But he heard Trump may have promised his employee a pardon if he was elected again.
Nauta was also told that even if he gets charged with lying to the F.B.I., the former president would pardon him in 2024, according to Person 16.
Person 16 said he gave everyone in Trump’s orbit the same advice: “Be honest and don’t be cute.”
A former White House official, identified as Person 27, told FBI agents that he talked with Trump in July 2021 about demands for documents from the National Archives and Records Administration. Person 27 offered to help look for the records, but Trump refused the offer.
FBI agents also interviewed an employee of the White House Office of Records Management, identified as Person 40, who was responsible for preserving presidential records during Trump’s time in office.
Person 40 told agents Trump kept some documents close at hand while he was in the White House because he did not “trust the system” and feared leaks. He said Trump also had “habits” in the White House of “destroying documents, tearing them up and/or throwing them away.”
Person 40 said Trump was told he should not destroy documents, but it had little effect.
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