SUBLIME:

Justice Department and FBI officials disagreed back in August about whether their investigation into the handling of sensitive documents justified the search of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort. Fewer officials had doubts earlier this month, when prosecutors took an even bolder step: asking a grand jury to indict the former president on 37 counts. 

What turned the tide was an audio tape and other evidence investigators confirmed around February from meetings Trump held almost two years earlier and a thousand miles from the former president's Palm Beach, Fla., resort, according to people familiar with the matter.

That crucial evidence, along with notes from a Trump lawyer describing his response to the investigation, helped spur prosecutors to push forward with a criminal case, the people said--an unprecedented step that might have been avoided if Trump had cooperated even late last year, as some of his lawyers had urged him to do.

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