Pat A. Cipollone and Patrick F. Philbin are the highest-ranking former Trump aides interviewed as part of the investigation into his handling of classified material.
Pat A. Cipollone and Patrick F. Philbin, a White House adviser and his deputy under President Donald J. Trump, have been questioned by the FBI in connection with boxes of classified documents kept at Mr Trump's Florida residence after he left office, three people familiar with the issue disclosed.
Mr Cipollone and Mr Philbin are the highest-ranking people who worked for Mr Trump, who are known to have been questioned by investigators after the National Archives turned the case over to the Justice Department this year. The interviews reveal the intensity of the investigation into how classified government material left the White House with Mr Trump and remained at his residence in Palm Beach, Florida, Mar-a-Lago, for more than a year.
According to two people familiar with the case, Mr Philbin was questioned in the spring when investigators approached members of Mr Trump's entourage to find out how 15 boxes of material - some marked classified - got to Mar-a-Lago. It is unclear when Mr Cipollone was questioned.
Mr Cipollone and Mr Philbin were Mr Trump's two representatives for the National Archives; they were appointed to the posts just before the end of the president's term, in January 2021. Another representative was Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff.
At some point, after the National Archives staff realised that they did not have the Trump White House documents that should be kept under the Presidential Records Act, they approached Mr Philbin for help in recovering them.