Thread by @JasonLeopold

BIG #FOIA SCOOP: Among the excuses Trump offered after FBI found classified docs at MAL, is GSA packed the boxes

But these docs-including PICS of pallets Trump's team packed, stacked & shrink wrapped-I obtained from GSA tells another story.

w/@jackgillum bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

What we have here in this incrediby detailed 165 page cache of emails, contracts, invoices, is the entire backstory from Jan through Sept 2021 of how GSA assisted the outgoing Trump transition team with SHIPPING pallets of boxes to MAL and a storage facility.

Trump's outgoing transition got $2.6M -$2M & change for Trump and $520K for Pence -- to set up office space in Arlington and MAL and purchase supplies, pay staff, pay for shipping, packing etc

Trump's team had to certify to GSA that everything that was shipped to MAL was "required to wind down the Office of the Former President or are items that are property of the Federal Government"

But here's the key question. Were these "document boxes" shipped to MAL the ones that held classified records the FBI retrieved? We just don't know from these records and neither does GSA.

But the pallets had the same type of bankers boxes FBI took from MAL

Some of the pallets shipped from the outgoing transition's team in Arlington went to a storage facility in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Trump had to pay GSA rent for the outgoing transition team's office space. One of Trump's transition team officials requested a "rent exemption."

Beyond that, here's what the team needed from GSA to set up shop after Trump departed the WH.

To further underscore that GSA was not involved in the packing of boxes, Trump's outgoing transition official in Florida sent an intern to DC to restack one of the pallets.

At one point, one of Trump's outgoing transition officials asked about keeping the autopen. Later she asked about shipping a portrait of Trump, which a GSA official said could not be done using GSA funds because it was a personal item

It took a month or so for what turned out to be 6 pallets to be delivered to a storage facility in West Palm Beach and to Mar-a-Lago. The process was a bit chaotic.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

One email in this cache that seemed odd is this July 19, 2021 exchange between a GSA official and Trump's director of correspondence for the outgoing transition about transition funds. It sounds like something prompted it but it's unclear.