The FBI interviewed former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and his former deputy Patrick Philbin earlier this year as part of the investigation into federal records taken to former President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach home, two people briefed on the matter said Tuesday, according to CNN.
The two are the most senior former Trump officials interviewed in what is now a criminal investigation of possible mishandling of classified information and obstruction.
The two men are among a group of former Trump aides whom the FBI interviewed after the criminal probe got underway this spring, the people briefed on the matter said.
Cipollone and Philbin declined to comment.
Cipollone and Philbin were designated by Trump shortly before he left office to deal with the issues related to his presidential records. The former President recently added Kash Patel, a former national security official in the Trump administration, and John Solomon, a pro-Trump writer, as designees on these matters, according to CNN.
This past Friday, a judge in Florida unsealed the search warrant for Trump’s home of Mar-a-Lago and related documents.
The warrant says that the FBI is investigating former US President Donald Trump for a potential violation of the Espionage Act.
Earlier reports said FBI agents who searched Mar-a-Lago removed no fewer than 11 sets of classified documents, including some marked as top secret and meant to be only available in special government facilities.
The FBI agents took around 20 boxes of items, binders of photos, a handwritten note and the executive grant of clemency for Trump’s ally Roger Stone, a list of items removed from the property shows.
On Monday, the US Justice Department said it opposes unsealing the affidavit that prosecutors used to obtain a federal judge's approval to search Mar-a-Lago.
"If disclosed, the affidavit would serve as a roadmap to the government's ongoing investigation, providing specific details about its direction and likely course, in a manner that is highly likely to compromise future investigative steps," prosecutors wrote in their filing.
Meanwhile on Monday, Trump argued that the records taken by the FBI had been declassified.
"The country is in a very dangerous position. There is tremendous anger, like I've never seen before, over all of the scams, and this new one – years of scams and witch hunts, and now this," Trump told Fox News. "If there is anything we can do to help, I, and my people, would certainly be willing to do that.”
The former President confirmed that his representatives had not heard back from the Justice Department on accepting his offer.
"There has never been a time like this where law enforcement has been used to break into the house of a former president of the United States, and there is tremendous anger in the country – at a level that has never been seen before, other than during very perilous times," he said.