Mar-a-Lago raid

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A onetime White House lawyer under President Donald J. Trump warned him late last year that Mr. Trump could face legal liability if he did not return government materials he had taken with him when he left office, three people familiar with the matter said. The lawyer, Eric Herschmann, sought to impress upon Mr. Trump the seriousness of the issue and the potential for investigations and legal exposure if he did not return the documents, particularly any classified material, the people said.

The account of the conversation is the latest evidence that Mr. Trump had been informed of the legal perils of holding onto material that is now at the heart of a Justice Department criminal investigation into his handling of the documents and the possibility that he or his aides engaged in obstruction. In January, not long after the discussion with Mr. Herschmann, Mr. Trump turned over to the National Archives 15 boxes of material he had taken with him from the White House. Those boxes turned out to contain 184 classified documents, the Justice Department has said.

But Mr. Trump continued to hold onto a considerable cache of other documents, including some with the highest security classification, until returning some under subpoena in June and having even more seized in a court-authorized search of his Mar-a-Lago residence and private club by F.B.I. agents last month.

• Misleading Information: The National Archives told the Justice Department that a lawyer representing Mr. Trump indicated to the archives last year that boxes the former president had taken to Mar-a-Lago from the White House included only nonclassified material, according to a person briefed on the matter.
  

Trump Was Warned Late Last Year of Potential Legal Peril Over Documents

• He was warned, but held on to most of the documents until he was subpoenaed
  
• Then he returned more documents and had a lawyer say that everything was returned
  
• This too turned out to be false, as the FBI found stacks of documents, some of which with the highest security classification in the court-ordered search.