CNN Prompts Finger-Pointing with Report Team Trump Told Feds There Were Only ‘News Clippings’ in Mar-a-Lago Boxes

CNN has touched off a round of finger-pointing with a report that Team Trump falsely claimed to federal authorities that there were only “news clippings” in boxes stored at Mar-a-Lago.

According to a new report authored by Jamie Gangel, former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is at the center of an attempt to mislead the National Archives about the documents that were being stored at Mar-a-Lago:

A former top official in the Trump White House counsel’s office told the National Archives last fall that, according to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, there were only 12 boxes of records at Mar-a-Lago and they were just filled with newspaper clippings, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

The Archives was following up on information from the White House Office of Records Management that there were about two dozen boxes in the residence, according to the source.

We know now that the evidence seized during the FBI in the search of  Mar-a-Lago included 100 documents marked classified, as well as “43 Empty Folders with ‘CLASSIFIED’ Banners.”

On Friday night’s edition of CNN’s Don Lemon Tonight, CNN Justice Correspondent Jessica Schneider reported on Meadows’ response to the report:

LEMON: Wow. So, Jessica, CNN confirming reporting tonight that last year’s Trump’s — last year, Trump’s lawyers told the National Archives boxes of records at Mar-a-Lago were just newspaper clippings, but clearly that wasn’t true. What do we know.

SCHNEIDER: Yes. So, this was, you know, was all part of this back and forth between the archives and Trump’s team really, for months when the archives was trying to get these presidential records back, eventually they did a few months ago in January.

So, our Jamie Gangel has actually learned that it was then deputy White House counsel, Pat Philbin. He was on the phone with the archives in September, 2021. And he said that Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows had assured him that the boxes remaining at Mar-a-Lago only contained newspaper clippings. Nothing classified. And he also said no documents had been destroyed.

But of course, we know now that that just wasn’t true. And it’s a revelation that’s just really another layer here in the question of how much Trump, his allies, his team, how much were they hiding and could that potentially lead to any obstruction charge from DOJ? Because we know that’s one of the charges that they’ve been looking into.

Now, when it comes to Patrick Philbin, a source is actually telling my colleague Evan Perez, that Philbin has long said he was unaware of the contents of the boxes that remained at Mar-a-Lago or if there was any classified material. And tonight, we still are waiting to hear from the archives, Don, but we had — have heard from a spokesperson from Mark Meadows who says this.

They say, Mr. Meadows did not personally review the boxes at Mar-a- Lago. Did not have a role in examining or verifying what was or wasn’t contained in them. So, everyone is sort of pointing the other way saying, I never knew it was in these even though maybe they said that nothing major was in them. We’ll see. Yes.

LEMON: So, everything — everybody is pointing, you know, to the person next to them or someone else.

Watch above via CNN.