The Department of Justice suspects former President Donald Trump still possesses documents that he took from the White House, people familiar with the matter told NBC News on Friday.
The department's top counterintelligence official, Jay Bratt, recently communicated that concern to Trump's lawyers, the sources said.
The New York Times reported Thursday that the department believed Trump had not returned all of the documents he took from the White House. This was also confirmed by The Wall Street Journal.
The revelation leaves some key questions unanswered, including whether the department has concrete evidence that Trump still holds classified material or it's just a suspicion based on inferences, such as the empty envelopes with classified markings that were seized at Mar-a-Lago or information from the National Archives that it's still missing documents from Trump's presidency.
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Various court filings from the department have suggested that some presidential records are still missing.
For more on this story, go to NBC News.