In contrast to his taxpayer-funded post-presidential office here on North Flagler Drive, Donald Trump likes to put his name on everything else.
The address, which is approximately a 10-minute drive from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, isn’t listed on his website. On the wall of the hallway, there is no nameplate. The frosted glass door has no official or unofficial seal. Additionally, there is no mention of the name Trump, a brand that the former president believes to be worth billions of dollars.
His spokesperson, Steven Cheung, claimed to be unaware of its existence because it is so secretive.
When NBC News inquired about the suite on Wednesday, Cheung responded, “I’ve never heard of a North Flagler office.”
But it’s right here, one story beneath a base for Trump’s Secret Service protection and across the hall from an IRS apartment with a door marked “criminal investigation.” The office’s location was confirmed by three sources.
The federal General Services Administration provides funds for post-presidential offices, including money for staff salaries, under the Former Presidents Act. Some former presidents opt to keep their offices darker than Bill Clinton did when he moved into a location on West 125th Street in New York’s Harlem more than 20 years ago for various reasons, including security.
This suit stands out because it has had a relatively unnoticed role in Trump’s affairs as he takes the extraordinary step of hoping to win the presidency again after losing the 2020 election.
According to a person familiar with Trump’s business, it has reportedly held classified information and has been searched by a private company at the request of Trump’s attorneys. According to two persons acquainted with the office, bankers’ boxes were still stacked in the middle of the main room and against the wall long after that inspection.
“Boxes everywhere,” one of the sources reported. “That office’s general condition is cluttered. I would assume that nothing happened if there weren’t any boxes and bins.
There is no evidence that Trump has used the position personally. It’s unclear what’s inside the boxes right now, and it’s also unclear whether he knows.
Trump denied claims that he improperly stored and concealed sensitive materials after leaving the White House in federal court in Miami in June. The office and its contents were not discussed in further detail by the special counsel Jack Smith’s spokeswoman.
Trump’s unusual triple hats—former president, contender, and defendant—raise concerns about if and how his advisors maintain their job distinct, aside from the lawsuit involving the sensitive papers.
According to campaign finance documents and sources familiar with the office, a number of Trump advisers who were employed by his Save America political action committee, his 2024 presidential campaign, or both have worked there since it began two years ago. In a follow-up email, I asked Cheung for further information on the office and how it functions, as well as whether or not the employees there who are on Trump’s political payroll are also paid by the government or by a private, non-campaign organization. Cheung did not reply.
Election finance specialists claim that it is feasible for one person to split their time between a campaign and official duties. For instance, most members of the executive branch, including political appointees, are permitted to engage in specific partisan political activities outside of the workplace, provided that they do not use government resources. Additionally, it’s possible that Trump’s advisers take care to separate their personal and professional lives.
However, it is strictly forbidden to carry out political tasks while on official business or while occupying a space used by the government. What actions Trump is taking to guarantee that there is a wall of separation between official business and campaign business for staffers who work for him politically is unclear.
“The general rule is, even if dual-hatting is permitted, and even when it’s being done with no pay on either or both jobs, you certainly cannot conduct [political] duties at your government office,” said a former lawyer for the Federal Election Commission who asked to remain unidentified to discuss the Trump situation. “That is pretty much an unbreakable law.”
While their aides react to letters from admirers and dignitaries, the majority of past presidents don’t have to think about mounting a defense and a presidential campaign.
Donald Trump is the first former president of our time to announce his candidacy for office. Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian, noted that at the same time, his political fundraising organizations are funding his defense.
American ex-presidents “have abided by fairly rigid traditions and practices since Nixon’s rocky and widely criticized first months out of office,” Beschloss added. If either of those scenarios occurred, “Such practices wouldn’t involve non-government officials using office space and services paid for by American taxpayers to carry out an ex-president’s campaign or to work on his personal legal defense.”
Political Payroll
In January 2021, a surprised-to-be-packing Trump left the White House, as his advisers rushed to gather the things he wanted to take with him and send them to many sites, including Mar-a-Lago and a short-term transition office in the suburbs of Washington.
The headquarters in the Washington suburbs was moved to West Palm Beach by Trump’s advisors in the final six months of the transition process. The “correspondence office” could only be at one site, which meant that it could either be at a West Palm Beach suite or at Mar-a-Lago, not both, according to Kathy Geisler, the GSA point person for the transition.
Furniture and other items from the Mar-a-lago location will have to be moved from the current location to the new location, Geisler wrote to Trump’s team in June 2021. “If the Former President’s Office determines that the Correspondence Office in West Palm Beach will serve as the single office that GSA will provide and furnish.
That “correspondence office,” also known as the former president’s office, seems to have finally moved into the space on North Flagler Drive. Trump doesn’t refer to himself as a “former” president, and his staff also tends to avoid that construction, despite the fact that he continues to assert erroneously that he won the 2020 election.
According to a GSA representative, it is “the sole office space which GSA has rented for the Office of the Former President Trump.”
Two of the people familiar with the office claim that several of his aides, all of whom held operations or correspondence positions at the White House, have been spotted at the North Flagler Drive office ever since it opened in late 2021. According to these sources, the cast includes Beau Harrison, Molly Michael, and Desiree Thompson.
Between July 2021 and September 2022, the month following the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago in search of secret papers, Michael, who no longer works for Trump, was an employee of his Save America political action committee. Regarding the work she completed for Trump at the North Flagler Drive office, a lawyer for Michael did not reply to inquiries.
In accordance with the PAC’s federal finance declarations, Harrison received payments from Save America on occasion for advance work, a year-end bonus, basic pay, and reimbursement for travel and office expenses. On August 15, 2022, one week after the raid on Mar-a-Lago, the final payment was made. A text message from NBC went unanswered by Harrison.
Thompson continues to work for Trump, according to Cheung, a spokeswoman for the president. She is still employed by Save America and receives a salary of around $120,000 annually, according to the PAC’s most recent report. When briefly reached by phone on Friday, Thompson kindly stated that she had to “refer” inquiries regarding the workplace. She didn’t return my call.
Classified material
A box containing schedules from the Trump White House, some of which had classified markings, was left unchecked in a West Palm Beach office when the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago on August 8, 2022, according to a report from The Guardian earlier this year.
The box was reportedly transported from a Mar-a-Lago workplace to a government-leased West Palm Beach office by a junior aide known as ROTUS, or “Receptionist of the United States,” when she was transferred to the office in 2022. The tabloid stated, citing two persons familiar with the situation, that she was later transferred back to Mar-a-Lago along with the timetables, and she additionally scanned them into a laptop.
Chamberlain Harris, who held the unofficial position at the end of the Trump administration, went under the pseudonym “ROTUS.” She did really work there for a while, according to one of the insiders who is familiar with the place. A text message and a LinkedIn message sent to Harris asking about her job at the North Flagler Drive office and whether she had moved the box of schedules to Mar-a-Lago received no response.
According to records of campaign contributions, Harris has worked for Save America since July 2021 and has been employed by Trump’s reelection campaign since December 2022. Between July 2021 and June 30, 2023, the last date for which there are campaign finance documents accessible, Trump-affiliated political parties collectively paid her $163,000, including travel reimbursements.
Late in 2022, federal agents put pressure on Trump’s legal team to turn over any remaining sensitive information in his possession. This caused his legal team to hire a private company to perform searches at other sites, including the North Flagler Drive business, claims a person familiar with the investigations.
The source claimed that the private team had not found any additional classified materials. No evidence exists that the FBI ever examined the location for sensitive information or other items covered by the Presidential Records Act that belonged to the government.