Trump’s reason for taking hundreds of pages of classified documents when he left office in January 2021 — and then concealing them when the Justice Department subpoenaed him for their return in May 2022 — has been one of the larger mysteries of the case. In a January 2023 “progress memo” reviewed by MS NOW, Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office discussed the possible motive after the FBI discovered that Trump held on to many documents related to his businesses. In a statement to MS NOW, the White