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Trump went on a raid because Kim Jong Un's letters, a cocktail napkin, and other things were in boxes

The raid on Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate was reportedly sparked by an ongoing investigation into the boxes of materials the ex-president took to Florida when he left the White House, including notes from North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and even a cocktail napkin.

In January, when the National Archives said it had found 15 boxes of White House records, including classified information, at Mar-a-Lago that Trump should have turned over when he left office, a fight broke out over the materials. On Monday, the feds took another 12 boxes of stuff.

Sources told the Wall Street Journal that letters from Kim Jong Un and a letter from Barack Obama to his successor were among the things that were found in January.

A source for the Washington Post said that a list of the non-classified items found in the boxes was about 100 pages long. It included the cocktail napkin and a birthday dinner menu.

Two men carry cardboard filing boxes outside Mar-a-Lago.
White House staff removed boxes from the White House in January of 2020.
AFP via Getty Images

Schedules, a phone list, letters, memos, talking points, slide decks, and schedules were some of the other things.

A list of classified materials that was about three pages long didn't say much about what the information was about right away.

The National Archives, which is in charge of keeping presidential records, found out about this, which led to a months-long investigation by the Justice Department into whether Trump was illegally keeping classified information at his private club and estate.

Plastic and carboard boxes, including two labeled "presidential library gifts" are piled high on roadway.
It’s unclear what documents the FBI removed in the latest raid on Mar-a-Lago. This photo shows items that were removed from the White House in 2020.
REUTERS

CNN sources say that investigators went to Mar-a-Lago at the beginning of June to talk with Trump's lawyers about turning over more information that could be classified.

During that meeting, Trump stopped by briefly to say hi to the feds before taking the investigators to a room in the basement where the documents were kept, sources said.

Five days later, the FBI told Trump's lawyers to lock down the room where the papers were.

The FBI then got a search warrant for Monday's raid after sources told Fox News that investigators didn't think Trump was helping them as much as before.

Investigators think that there could still be more classified information at Trump's estate.

It's not clear what the feds got when they carried out the latest search warrant while Trump was at his home in Manhattan. The Washington Post said that on Monday, the FBI took about a dozen boxes from a storage area in a locked basement.

Donald Trump looks at Kim Jung Un.
The National Archives previously recovered 15 boxes of White House documents from Trump’s Florida estate including correspondence with Kim Jong Un.
AFP via Getty Images
Donald Trump holds up a folded piece of paper with an American flag behind him.
Donald Trump slammed the raid, saying that it was politically motivated and unnecessary.
AFP via Getty Images

No one from the Justice Department has said anything about the raid.

Trump called the raid "not necessary" and said he had been working with the agencies. Even so, the former president still hasn't talked about the warrant in public.

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