The Justice Department subpoenaed former President Trump months before federal law enforcement executed a search warrant of his Mar-a-Lago estate this week, The New York Times reported Thursday.
According to the Times, investigators had been concerned about classified national security information that might have remained at Trump’s Florida property, even in the months after the National Archives recovered 15 boxes of White House materials from there in January.
The subpoena reportedly preceded a June meeting at Mar-a-Lago between attorneys representing Trump and Justice Department investigators, who later asked that a basement room containing White House records be better secured.
The Times noted that the subpoena was first reported by the conservative journalist John Solomon, who wrote this week that Trump’s lawyers had been making efforts to comply.
Solomon has previously worked as an executive vice president and opinion columnist for The Hill.
A few weeks after the June meeting between Trump’s lawyers and Justice Department officials, investigators issued another subpoena, this time for security footage near the room where the White House materials were stored.
The reveal of the subpoenas adds new wrinkles to the unprecedented search of the former president’s home this week, suggesting that investigators had worried for months about the possibility of classified national security material left unsecured on the property.
Shortly after the Times story was published, the Justice Department announced Attorney General Merrick Garland would be making a public statement Thursday afternoon. The department offered no further details on the topic he would address.