The content of the email was confirmed to CNN by a source familiar with the matter. The email was first reported by the Washington Post.
Stern wrote in the email: “It is also our understanding that approximately two dozen boxes of original presidential records were kept in the White House Residence during President Trump’s last year in office and have not been transferred to NARA, despite a determination by Pat Cipollone in the final days of the administration that they must be. He had also raised this concern with Scott in recent weeks.”
“Scott” refers to Scott Gast, another Trump lawyer who was copied in the message.
Cipollone, along with former aide Patrick Philbin, were appointed by Trump shortly before he left office to deal with issues surrounding his presidential records.
CNN could not reach Cipollone for comment on the email.
The newly reported email underscores efforts by the National Archives, charged with collecting and classifying presidential material, to recover Trump-era documents as an investigation into the handling of presidential records heats up. The FBI executed a search warrant at the former president’s Florida residence earlier this month, with federal agents removing boxes of material from the property.
The National Archives has previously said at least 15 boxes of White House records were recovered from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in January, including some that were classified. And in its search earlier this month, the FBI recovered 11 sets of classified documents, including some material marked “super secret/SCI,” one of the highest levels of classification.
CNN previously reported that the archives had been working throughout 2021 to retrieve Trump’s presidential records.
According to the source familiar with the matter, there were a dozen emails and phone calls over the course of the year as the Archives tried to get Trump to return the presidential documents.
In the final weeks of the administration, the National Archives became aware that they were looking for certain documents because the White House Records office alerted the Archives that they had never received them from the president’s team, including the map of the ‘hurricane Dorian that Trump infamously. altered with a Sharpie marker, former President Barack Obama’s letter to Trump and Kim Jong Un’s “love letters.”
According to the source, the Archives knew that White House records management had identified missing documents even before Trump left office.
In addition, the Archives was aware of the two dozen boxes at the residence even while Trump was in office, the source said.
But there was no inventory or documentation of exactly what was in those boxes.
Shortly after Trump left office, negotiations to return the documents began between the Archives and Trump’s team, according to the family source. There were repeated phone calls and communications to try to get the boxes back, but to no avail, the source said.
Finally, in January 2022, Trump agreed to return 15 boxes, not the 24 that the Archives had knowledge of, that were kept at his Mar-a-Lago residence, boxes that the Archives determined contained classified documents.
This story has been updated with additional reporting.
CNN’s Evan Perez and Gabby Orr contributed to this report.