FBI is raiding Mar-a-Lago

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Re: FBI is raiding Mar-a-Lago

#101 Post by jarnon » Fri Aug 26, 2022 10:36 am

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Re: FBI is raiding Mar-a-Lago

#102 Post by silverscreenselect » Fri Aug 26, 2022 11:02 am

One thing I heard today in the discussion about the affidavit deals with the spurious claim raised by Kash Patel and others (though apparently not by Trump himself) that he could just issue a standing order or wave his hand over documents to declassify them. If a document is declassified for any reason, then it isn't just declassified for Donald Trump and/or someone he specifically designates to look at them. It means they are declassified to the public at large and subject to a Freedom of Information Act request. That means that anyone could request the dozens of secret and top secret defense information documents that were removed from Mar-a-Lago.

I doubt you'd find any bureaucrat or judge willing to release those documents to the Iranian or Russian ambassadors to the United States.
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Re: FBI is raiding Mar-a-Lago

#103 Post by jarnon » Wed Aug 31, 2022 12:32 pm

Here is another legal brief from DOJ:

United States’ Response to Motion for Judicial Oversight and Additional Relief

It mostly rehashes facts we already knew. Of interest:
  • Page 10: DOJ learned that there were still documents marked classified at Mar-a-Lago after Trump’s attorneys swore they had all been returned. This belies Trump’s claim that he was cooperative and would have handed over everything if the government was more patient. Also, boxes were moved in and out of the storage room, which is the basis for the obstruction charge.
  • Pages 39-40: There are presidential records in the National Archives that are torn up; some have been taped together. This confirms news reports that Trump destroyed documents.
  • Page 54: A photo showing how Trump sloppily stored sensitive documents along with personal memorabilia. It doesn’t add much to the case, but it has more of an impact on social media than a boring legal brief.
The legal issues concerning executive privilege and attorney-client privilege are complicated. Even if DOJ hands some privileged presidential records to the National Archives (not to Trump!) and returns some personal belongings to Trump, they’ll still have plenty of evidence to build a criminal case.

I’d like to know what the Mar-a-Lago security videos reveal. Maybe some Mar-a-Lago employees moved boxes around without authorization from Trump or his attorneys. They could even be undocumented immigrants who don’t read English and didn’t know what they were handling.
Last edited by jarnon on Wed Aug 31, 2022 12:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: FBI is raiding Mar-a-Lago

#104 Post by Bob78164 » Wed Aug 31, 2022 12:51 pm

jarnon wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 12:32 pm
Here is another legal brief from DOJ:

United States’ Response to Motion for Judicial Oversight and Additional Relief

It mostly rehashes facts we already knew. Of interest:
  • Page 10: DOJ learned that there were still documents marked classified at Mar-a-Lago after Trump’s attorneys swore they had all been returned. This belies Trump’s claim that he was cooperative and would have handed over everything if the government was more patient. Also, boxes were moved in and out of the storage room, which is the basis for the obstruction charge.
  • Pages 39-40: There are presidential records in the National Archives that are torn up; some have been taped together. This confirms news reports that Trump destroyed documents.
  • Page 54: A photo showing how Trump sloppily stored sensitive documents along with personal memorabilia. It doesn’t add much to the case, but it has more of an impact on social media than a boring legal brief.
The legal issues concerning executive privilege and attorney-client privilege are complicated. Even if DOJ hands some privileged presidential records to the National Archives (not to Trump!) and returns some personal belongings to Trump, they’ll still have plenty of evidence to build a criminal case.

I’d like to know what the Mar-a-Lago security videos reveal. Maybe some Mar-a-Lago employees moved boxes around without authorization from Trump or his attorneys. They could even be undocumented immigrants who don’t read English didn’t know what they were handling.
At least one of Donny's attorneys, who may or may not have had clearance to read sensitive materials, swore that just days before the search warrant was executed, she had access to many of the areas where National Defense Information was later found. One of those areas was Donny's desk. --Bob
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Re: FBI is raiding Mar-a-Lago

#105 Post by silverscreenselect » Wed Aug 31, 2022 1:00 pm

Bob78164 wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 12:51 pm
jarnon wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 12:32 pm
Here is another legal brief from DOJ:

I’d like to know what the Mar-a-Lago security videos reveal. Maybe some Mar-a-Lago employees moved boxes around without authorization from Trump or his attorneys. They could even be undocumented immigrants who don’t read English didn’t know what they were handling.
At least one of Donny's attorneys, who may or may not have had clearance to read sensitive materials, swore that just days before the search warrant was executed, she had access to many of the areas where National Defense Information was later found. One of those areas was Donny's desk. --Bob
Trump's defense is likely to be that he didn't know what people were doing or what documents were involved. The usual procedure in cases like this is to squeeze the little fish in hopes of them turning on the big fish. In this case, the attorneys are squarely on the hook for the sworn documents they've signed. The DOJ is probably looking for as much evidence as possible about Trump's personal involvement with the documents.

The big question is just what he wanted to do with them. My own view is slightly more benign than those of many, and that's that Trump wanted this material so he could still feel important and not that he had any plans to sell or give it to a foreign government. Of course, that doesn't mean he might not show them off to one of his golfing buddies or a wealthy campaign donor who may or may not have been a foreign agent just to bolster his ego.
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Re: FBI is raiding Mar-a-Lago

#106 Post by jarnon » Wed Aug 31, 2022 1:01 pm

Bob78164 wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 12:51 pm
At least one of Donny's attorneys, who may or may not have had clearance to read sensitive materials, swore that just days before the search warrant was executed, she had access to many of the areas where National Defense Information was later found. One of those areas was Donny's desk. --Bob
Attorneys (other than those on this Bored) have been known to lie.
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Re: FBI is raiding Mar-a-Lago

#107 Post by BackInTex » Wed Aug 31, 2022 2:14 pm

jarnon wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 1:01 pm
Bob78164 wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 12:51 pm
At least one of Donny's attorneys, who may or may not have had clearance to read sensitive materials, swore that just days before the search warrant was executed, she had access to many of the areas where National Defense Information was later found. One of those areas was Donny's desk. --Bob
Attorneys (other than those on this Bored) have been known to lie.

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Re: FBI is raiding Mar-a-Lago

#108 Post by Bob Juch » Wed Aug 31, 2022 7:25 pm

Bob78164 wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 12:51 pm
jarnon wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 12:32 pm
Here is another legal brief from DOJ:

United States’ Response to Motion for Judicial Oversight and Additional Relief

It mostly rehashes facts we already knew. Of interest:
  • Page 10: DOJ learned that there were still documents marked classified at Mar-a-Lago after Trump’s attorneys swore they had all been returned. This belies Trump’s claim that he was cooperative and would have handed over everything if the government was more patient. Also, boxes were moved in and out of the storage room, which is the basis for the obstruction charge.
  • Pages 39-40: There are presidential records in the National Archives that are torn up; some have been taped together. This confirms news reports that Trump destroyed documents.
  • Page 54: A photo showing how Trump sloppily stored sensitive documents along with personal memorabilia. It doesn’t add much to the case, but it has more of an impact on social media than a boring legal brief.
The legal issues concerning executive privilege and attorney-client privilege are complicated. Even if DOJ hands some privileged presidential records to the National Archives (not to Trump!) and returns some personal belongings to Trump, they’ll still have plenty of evidence to build a criminal case.

I’d like to know what the Mar-a-Lago security videos reveal. Maybe some Mar-a-Lago employees moved boxes around without authorization from Trump or his attorneys. They could even be undocumented immigrants who don’t read English didn’t know what they were handling.
At least one of Donny's attorneys, who may or may not have had clearance to read sensitive materials, swore that just days before the search warrant was executed, she had access to many of the areas where National Defense Information was later found. One of those areas was Donny's desk. --Bob
She swore not that she just had access to those areas, but that she searched them and did not find an secret documents. I'd say at a minimum, her law license is in Jeopardy.
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Re: FBI is raiding Mar-a-Lago

#109 Post by Bob78164 » Wed Aug 31, 2022 7:37 pm

Bob Juch wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 7:25 pm
Bob78164 wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 12:51 pm
jarnon wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 12:32 pm
Here is another legal brief from DOJ:

United States’ Response to Motion for Judicial Oversight and Additional Relief

It mostly rehashes facts we already knew. Of interest:
  • Page 10: DOJ learned that there were still documents marked classified at Mar-a-Lago after Trump’s attorneys swore they had all been returned. This belies Trump’s claim that he was cooperative and would have handed over everything if the government was more patient. Also, boxes were moved in and out of the storage room, which is the basis for the obstruction charge.
  • Pages 39-40: There are presidential records in the National Archives that are torn up; some have been taped together. This confirms news reports that Trump destroyed documents.
  • Page 54: A photo showing how Trump sloppily stored sensitive documents along with personal memorabilia. It doesn’t add much to the case, but it has more of an impact on social media than a boring legal brief.
The legal issues concerning executive privilege and attorney-client privilege are complicated. Even if DOJ hands some privileged presidential records to the National Archives (not to Trump!) and returns some personal belongings to Trump, they’ll still have plenty of evidence to build a criminal case.

I’d like to know what the Mar-a-Lago security videos reveal. Maybe some Mar-a-Lago employees moved boxes around without authorization from Trump or his attorneys. They could even be undocumented immigrants who don’t read English didn’t know what they were handling.
At least one of Donny's attorneys, who may or may not have had clearance to read sensitive materials, swore that just days before the search warrant was executed, she had access to many of the areas where National Defense Information was later found. One of those areas was Donny's desk. --Bob
She swore not that she just had access to those areas, but that she searched them and did not find an secret documents. I'd say at a minimum, her law license is in Jeopardy.
I don't think she said anything about finding or not finding secret documents. This search was in response to a subpoena from the New York Attorney General, who wasn't looking for National Defense Information. --Bob
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Re: FBI is raiding Mar-a-Lago

#110 Post by silverscreenselect » Wed Aug 31, 2022 9:16 pm

Bob78164 wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 7:37 pm
Bob Juch wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 7:25 pm
She swore not that she just had access to those areas, but that she searched them and did not find any secret documents. I'd say at a minimum, her law license is in Jeopardy.
I don't think she said anything about finding or not finding secret documents. This search was in response to a subpoena from the New York Attorney General, who wasn't looking for National Defense Information. --Bob
New York Times wrote:At least one lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump signed a written statement in June asserting that all material marked as classified and held in boxes in a storage area at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and club had been returned to the government, four people with knowledge of the document said. The written declaration was made after a visit on June 3 to Mar-a-Lago by Jay I. Bratt, the top counterintelligence official in the Justice Department’s national security division.

The existence of the signed declaration, which has not previously been reported, is a possible indication that Mr. Trump or his team were not fully forthcoming with federal investigators about the material. And it could help explain why a potential violation of a criminal statute related to obstruction was cited by the department as one basis for seeking the warrant used to carry out the daylong search of the former president’s home on Monday, an extraordinary step that generated political shock waves.

Mr. Trump returned 15 boxes of material [to the National Archives] in January of this year. When archivists examined the material, they found many pages of documents with classified markings and referred the matter to the Justice Department, which began an investigation and convened a grand jury.In the spring, the department issued a subpoena to Mr. Trump seeking additional documents that it believed may have been in his possession. The former president was repeatedly urged by advisers to return what remained, despite what they described as his desire to continue to hold onto some documents. In an effort to resolve the dispute, Mr. Bratt and other officials visited Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., in early June, briefly meeting Mr. Trump while they were there. Two of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, M. Evan Corcoran and Christina Bobb, spoke with Mr. Bratt and a small number of investigators he traveled with, people briefed on the meeting said.

Mr. Corcoran and Ms. Bobb showed Mr. Bratt and his team boxes holding material Mr. Trump had taken from the White House that were being kept in a storage area, the people said. According to two people briefed on the visit, Mr. Bratt and his team left with additional material marked classified, and around that time also obtained the written declaration from a Trump lawyer attesting that all the material marked classified in the boxes had been turned over.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/13/us/p ... l-fbi.html

"Attesting" means that the statement is sworn and subject to perjury sanctions. For an attorney it would also subject them to disciplinary sanctions, including disbarment.
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Re: FBI is raiding Mar-a-Lago

#111 Post by Bob Juch » Wed Aug 31, 2022 9:37 pm

silverscreenselect wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 9:16 pm
Bob78164 wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 7:37 pm
Bob Juch wrote:
Wed Aug 31, 2022 7:25 pm
She swore not that she just had access to those areas, but that she searched them and did not find any secret documents. I'd say at a minimum, her law license is in Jeopardy.
I don't think she said anything about finding or not finding secret documents. This search was in response to a subpoena from the New York Attorney General, who wasn't looking for National Defense Information. --Bob
You're right. It seems the two subpoenas were conflated by the report I read.
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Re: FBI is raiding Mar-a-Lago

#112 Post by jarnon » Thu Sep 01, 2022 11:53 am

Trump’s lawyers dug a deeper hole replied to DOJ’s brief on how the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago should be handled.

Movant’s Reply to United States’ Response to Motion For Judicial Oversight and Additional Relief
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Re: FBI is raiding Mar-a-Lago

#113 Post by silverscreenselect » Thu Sep 01, 2022 1:17 pm

jarnon wrote:
Thu Sep 01, 2022 11:53 am
Trump’s lawyers dug a deeper hole replied to DOJ’s brief on how the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago should be handled.

Movant’s Reply to United States’ Response to Motion For Judicial Oversight and Additional Relief
Trump's lawyer Alina Habba appeared on Sean Hannity last night complaining about the photo taken of the classified documents. Her claim was that the FBU staged the photo to make Trump look bad, like he left classified documents lying around the floor of his office. Of course, it's standard for police to take photos of evidence they seize in any criminal raid, which doesn't mean for example that drug dealers leave stuff all over the ground where the picture was taken.

However, Habba really hurt Trump's cause in a couple of ways. First, she admitted that she had been in the office and was familiar with where these documents were kept, which means the statement that they had turned over all the classified documents was a lie. Second, she stated that Trump frequently had guests in the office, which means that these people could have gotten access to all the classified and top secret documents.

The more Trump and his attorneys open their mouths, the deeper hole they dig.
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Re: FBI is raiding Mar-a-Lago

#114 Post by silverscreenselect » Fri Sep 02, 2022 9:51 am

The judge released a detailed inventory of what was seized in the raid, and, as usual, every time Trump's attorneys insist on making more information public, the worse it gets for them. The inventory reveals that classified documents were mixed in boxes with various personal items and hundreds of photographs and other government documents. The photos did not have classified markings but they were clearly labeled as belonging to the Federal government. Under federal law, those documents belong to the National Archives and are not Donald Trump's personal souvenirs.

What concerned me was that there were dozens of empty folders that had a classified banner outside. This cover page is not classified itself (thus the evidence photo showing the folders did not violate any laws), but it warns people what's inside so that unauthorized people don't accidentally access the information. The question becomes what happened to the documents that were originally in the folders. Were they other places in the office? Were they returned earlier? Did they somehow disappear from Mar-a-Lago? Hopefully, we'll get some explanation about that.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/02/politics ... index.html
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Re: FBI is raiding Mar-a-Lago

#115 Post by jarnon » Fri Sep 02, 2022 10:58 am

I’d like to know the details too, but there are certainly enough classified documents that were removed from Mar-a-Lago to fill all the folders.

I’m surprised that Trump owns over thirty books!
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Re: FBI is raiding Mar-a-Lago

#116 Post by Bob Juch » Fri Sep 02, 2022 3:46 pm

jarnon wrote:
Fri Sep 02, 2022 10:58 am
I’d like to know the details too, but there are certainly enough classified documents that were removed from Mar-a-Lago to fill all the folders.

I’m surprised that Trump owns over thirty books!
That doesn't mean he read them.
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Re: FBI is raiding Mar-a-Lago

#117 Post by jarnon » Mon Sep 05, 2022 2:10 pm

And here is Judge Cannon's order to appoint a special master:

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/ ... 3640_2.pdf
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Re: FBI is raiding Mar-a-Lago

#118 Post by Bob Juch » Thu Sep 15, 2022 9:06 pm

Judge Aileen M. Cannon declined to lift any part of an order she issued last week that barred the department from using the documents, including about 100 marked classified, in its investigation until the arbiter, known as a special master, had completed a review.

In her 10-page decision, Judge Cannon appointed a special master suggested by the Trump legal team and agreed upon by the government: Raymond J. Dearie, a semiretired judge from the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
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Re: FBI is raiding Mar-a-Lago

#119 Post by jarnon » Tue Oct 04, 2022 11:50 am

Washington Post wrote:Trump’s lawyer refused his request in February to say all documents returned

After initial return of 15 boxes, attorney Alex Cannon thought there might be more records at Mar-a-Lago, people familiar with the matter said


By Josh Dawsey and  Jacqueline Alemany

Former president Donald Trump asked one of his lawyers to tell the National Archives and Records Administration in early 2022 that Trump had returned all materials requested by the agency, but the lawyer declined because he was not sure the statement was true, according to people familiar with the matter.

As it turned out, thousands more government documents — including some highly classified secrets — remained at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and private club. The later discovery of those documents, through a May grand jury subpoena and the Aug. 8 FBI search of the Florida property, are at the heart of a criminal investigation into the potential mishandling of classified material and the possible hiding, tampering or destruction of government records.

Alex Cannon, an attorney for Trump, had facilitated the January transfer of 15 boxes of presidential records from Mar-a-Lago to the National Archives, after archives officials agitated for more than a year to get “all original presidential records” back, which they are required by law to do. Following months of stonewalling by Trump’s representatives, archives officials threatened to get the Justice Department or Congress involved.

Trump himself eventually packed the boxes that were returned in January, people familiar with the matter said. The former president seemed determined in February to declare that all material sought by the archives had been handed over, said the people, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations.

Around the same time The Washington Post reported that the archives had retrieved documents from Mar-a-Lago, the people said, Trump asked his team to release a statement he had dictated. The statement said Trump had returned “everything” the archives had requested. Trump asked Cannon to send a similar message to archives officials, the people said. In addition, the former president told his aides that the documents in the boxes were “newspaper clippings” and not relevant to the archives, two of these people said, and complained that the agency charged with tracking government records was being persnickety about securing the materials from his Florida club.

But Cannon, a former Trump Organization lawyer who worked for the campaign and for Trump after the presidency, told Trump he could not tell the archives all the requested material had been returned. He told others he was not sure if other documents were still at the club and would be uncomfortable making such a claim, the people familiar with the matter said. Other Trump advisers also encouraged Cannon not to make such a definitive statement, people familiar with the matter said.

The Feb. 7 statement Trump dictated was never released over concerns by some of his team that it was not accurate, people familiar with the matter said. A different statement issued three days later said Trump had given boxes of materials to the archives in a “friendly” manner. It did not say that all of the materials were handed over.

“The papers were given easily and without conflict and on a very friendly basis, which is different from the accounts being drawn up by the Fake News Media,” said the Feb. 10 statement, which came on the same day The Washington Post reported that classified material was found in the 15 boxes.

A Trump spokesman did not respond to specific questions for this article, instead issuing a statement that said the Justice Department “has no greater ally than the Bezos-subsidized Washington Post, which seems to only serve as the partisan microphone of leakers and liars buried deep within the bowels of America’s government. President Trump remains committed to defending the Constitution and the Office of the Presidency, ensuring the integrity of America for generations to come.” (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

Cannon did not respond to a detailed email seeking comment about his interactions with Trump and the archives.

The question of whether Trump — or anyone else — knew that there was additional government material at Mar-a-Lago after the return of the 15 boxes has become a central issue in the Justice Department investigation.

Attempts to get Trump’s representatives to falsely state he had no presidential records in his possession could serve as evidence that he was intentionally and knowingly withholding documents. And if Trump continued to pressure aides to make false statements even after learning the Justice Department was involved in retrieving the documents, authorities could see those efforts as an attempt to obstruct their investigation.

Even as Trump was seeking to convey that he had complied fully with the request from the archives, Cannon appears to have been communicating a different message to officials at the agency.

On Feb. 8, according to people familiar with the matter, archives lawyer Gary Stern told colleagues at the agency that he had spoken with Cannon and that Cannon said he did not know if there were more relevant documents in Trump’s possession. Stern had been asking the Trump team to attest that all relevant documents had been returned, and privately feared they had not, these people said.

Months earlier, in late 2021, when the archives was seeking the return of specific presidential documents, Cannon had told Stern there could be more documents in Trump’s possession than what he was transmitting to the agency, but that he did not know one way or the other. Cannon also told Stern that he was not sure where all the documents were located, or what the documents were, according to people familiar with the conversations.

According to an account given to Stern’s colleagues, Stern also asked Trump lawyer Pat Philbin whether there were more documents, the people said. Philbin declined through a spokesman to comment for this article.

Cannon’s refusal to declare everything had been returned soured his relationship with Trump, people familiar with the matter said. Cannon, who had worked for the Trump Organization since 2015, was soon cut out of the documents-related discussions, some of the people said, as Trump relied on more pugilistic advisers.

A separate issue of concern to Cannon and others was whether any of the material in the returned boxes might be classified, people familiar with the matter said. Cannon did not have a security clearance and had not reviewed the boxes himself, one of the people said. He had told other aides not to review the boxes either, saying that doing so could get them in trouble, these people said.

A total of 184 classified documents were found in the returned boxes, officials have said.

Trump’s team later returned 38 additional classified documents to the Justice Department in June in response to the May 11 grand jury subpoena, which sought any documents still at Mar-a-Lago that bore classified markings.

In August, believing there was still more classified material at Mar-a-Lago, the FBI obtained a warrant to search the property and confiscated more than 27 additional boxes of material. Agents retrieved 11 sets of classified material in their search — totaling about 100 documents. Some of them contained closely held secrets of the U.S. government, people familiar with the matter have said, including information about a foreign nation’s nuclear capabilities.

In responding to the May subpoena, other aides to Trump agreed to assert all documents being sought had been returned. Evan Corcoran, who replaced Cannon, told the Justice Department he was handing over all the relevant materials, people familiar with the matter have said. Christina Bobb, another Trump lawyer, signed a document saying she had been advised that Trump’s team had given over all relevant documents after a diligent search.

The National Archives preserves all presidential records under the Presidential Records Act, which states that “any records created or received by the President as part of his constitutional, statutory, or ceremonial duties are the property of the United States government and will be managed by NARA at the end of the administration.”

Rosalind S. Helderman and Carol D. Leonnig contributed to this report.
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Re: FBI is raiding Mar-a-Lago

#120 Post by Bob Juch » Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:16 pm

They still haven't retrieved the documents he moved to his Bedminster golf resort.
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Re: FBI is raiding Mar-a-Lago

#121 Post by jarnon » Thu Oct 13, 2022 2:57 pm

Snatched from behind the firewall:
Washington Post wrote:Trump worker told FBI about moving Mar-a-Lago boxes on ex-president’s orders
Key witness and security-camera footage offer evidence of Trump’s actions after government subpoena, people familiar say


By Devlin Barrett and  Josh Dawsey

A Trump employee has told federal agents about moving boxes of documents at Mar-a-Lago at the specific direction of the former president, according to people familiar with the investigation, who say the witness account — combined with security-camera footage — offers key evidence of Donald Trump’s behavior as investigators sought the return of classified material.

The witness description and footage described to The Washington Post offer the most direct account to date of Trump’s actions and instructions leading up to the FBI’s Aug. 8 search of the Florida residence and private club, in which agents were looking for evidence of potential crimes including obstruction, destruction of government records or mishandling classified information.

The people familiar with the investigation said agents have gathered witness accounts indicating that, after Trump advisers received a subpoena in May for any classified documents that remained at Mar-a-Lago, Trump told people to move boxes to his residence at the property. That description of events was corroborated by the security-camera footage, which showed people moving the boxes, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

Spokespeople for the Justice Department and FBI declined to comment.

Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich declined to answer detailed questions for this article. “The Biden administration has weaponized law enforcement and fabricated a Document Hoax in a desperate attempt to retain political power,” Budowich said in a statement. “Every other President has been given time and deference regarding the administration of documents, as the President has the ultimate authority to categorize records, and what materials should be classified.”

Budowich accused the Justice Department of a “continued effort to leak misleading and false information to partisan allies in the Fake News,” and said that to do so “is nothing more than dangerous political interference and unequal justice. Simply put, it’s un-American.”

The employee who was working at Mar-a-Lago is cooperating with the Justice Department and has been interviewed multiple times by federal agents, according to the people familiar with the situation, who declined to identify the worker.

In the first interview, these people said, the witness denied handling sensitive documents or the boxes that might contain such documents. As they gathered evidence, agents decided to re-interview the witness, and the witness’s story changed dramatically, these people said. In the second interview, the witness described moving boxes at Trump’s request.

The witness is now considered a key part of the Mar-a-Lago investigation, these people said, offering details about the former president’s alleged actions and instructions to subordinates that could have been an attempt to thwart federal officials’ demands for the return of classified and government documents.

Multiple witnesses have told the FBI they tried to talk Trump into cooperating with the National Archives and Records Administration and the Justice Department as those agencies for months sought the return of sensitive or historical government records, people familiar with the situation said.

But entreaties from advisers and lawyers who pushed for Trump to hand the documents back fell on deaf ears with Trump, these people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. Trump grew angry this spring after a House Oversight Committee investigation was launched, telling aides they’d “screwed up” the situation, according to people who heard his comments. “They’re my documents,” Trump said, according to an aide who spoke to him.

The details shared with The Post reveal two key parts of the criminal probe that until now had been shrouded in secrecy: an account from a witness who worked for and took directions from Trump, and the way that security footage from Mar-a-Lago has played an important role in buttressing witness accounts.

Together, those pieces of evidence helped convince the FBI and Justice Department to seek the court-authorized search of Trump’s residence, office and a storage room at Mar-a-Lago, which resulted in the seizure of 103 documents that were marked classified and had not been turned over to the government in response to the May subpoena. Some of the documents detail top-secret U.S. operations so closely guarded that many senior national security officials are kept in the dark about them. The Aug. 8 search also yielded about 11,000 documents not marked classified.

The failure or possible refusal to return the classified documents in response to the subpoena is at the heart of the Justice Department’s Mar-a-Lago investigation, which is one of several high-profile, ongoing probes involving Trump. The former president remains the most influential figure in the Republican Party and talks openly about running for the White House again in 2024.

Within Trump’s orbit, there have been months of dueling accusations and theories about who may be cooperating with the federal government. Some of the former president’s closest aides have continued to work with Trump even as they have seen FBI agents show up at their houses to question them and serve subpoenas.

Within the Justice Department and FBI, the witness’s account has been a closely held secret as agents continue to gather evidence in the high-stakes investigation. In addition to wanting to keep the information they have gathered so far under wraps, people familiar with the situation said, authorities are also concerned that if or when the witness’s identity eventually becomes public, that person could face harassment or threats from Trump supporters.

In a filing to the Supreme Court on Tuesday, Justice Department lawyers appeared to allude to witness accounts and the video footage when they wrote: “The FBI uncovered evidence that the response to the grand jury subpoena was incomplete, that additional classified documents likely remained at Mar-a-Lago, and that efforts had likely been taken to obstruct the investigation.”

Since the Aug. 8 search, Trump has offered a number of public defenses of why documents with classified markings remained at Mar-a-Lago — saying he declassified the secret documents, suggesting that the FBI planted evidence during the search, and suggesting that as a former president he may have had a right to keep classified documents. National security law experts have overwhelmingly dismissed such claims, saying they range from far-fetched to nonsensical.

Officials at the National Archives began seeking the return of documents last year, after they came to believe that some presidential records from the Trump administration — such as letters from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — were unaccounted for, and perhaps in Trump’s possession.

After months of back-and-forth, Trump agreed in January to turn over 15 boxes of material. When archivists examined the material, they found 184 documents marked classified, including 25 marked top secret, which were scattered throughout the boxes in no particular order, according to court filings.

That discovery suggested to authorities that Trump had not turned over all the classified documents in his possession. In May, a grand jury subpoena demanded the return of classified documents with a wide variety of markings, including a category used for secrets about nuclear weapons.

In response to that subpoena, Trump’s advisers met with government agents and prosecutors at Mar-a-Lago in early June, handing over a sealed envelope containing another 38 classified documents, including 17 marked top secret, according to court papers. According to government filings, Trump’s representatives claimed at the meeting that a diligent search had been conducted for all classified documents at the club.

That meeting, which included a visit to the storage room where Trump’s advisers said the relevant boxes of documents were kept, did not satisfy investigators, who were not allowed to inspect the boxes they saw in the storage room, according to government court filings.
Trump team initially said boxes at Mar-a-Lago were only news clippings

Five days later, senior Justice Department official Jay Bratt wrote to Trump’s lawyers to remind them that Mar-a-Lago “does not include a secure location authorized for the storage of classified information.” Bratt wrote that it appears classified documents “have not been handled in an appropriate manner or stored in an appropriate location.”

“Accordingly, we ask that the room at Mar-a-Lago where the documents had been stored be secured and that all of the boxes that were moved from the White House to Mar-a-Lago (along with any other items in that room) be preserved in that room in their current condition until further notice.”

Agents continued to gather evidence that Trump was apparently not complying with either government requests or subpoena demands. After significant deliberation, aware that it would be highly unusual for federal agents to search a former president’s home, they decided to seek a judge’s approval to do so.

That Aug. 8 search turned up, in a matter of hours, 103 documents marked classified, including 18 marked top secret, according to court papers. The stash included at least one document that described a foreign country’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities.
New York Times wrote:Trump Aide Was Seen on Security Footage Moving Boxes at Mar-a-Lago
The aide, Walt Nauta, moved the boxes from a storage room before and after the Justice Department issued a subpoena demanding the return of all classified documents held by the former president.


By Maggie Haberman and Alan Feuer

A long-serving aide to former President Donald J. Trump was captured on security camera footage moving boxes out of a storage room at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s residence in Florida, both before and after the Justice Department issued a subpoena in May demanding the return of all classified documents, according to three people familiar with the matter.

The footage showed Walt Nauta, a former military aide who left the White House and then went to work for Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago, moving boxes from a storage room that became a focus of the Justice Department’s investigation, according to the people briefed on the matter. The inquiry has centered on whether Mr. Trump improperly kept national security records after he left the White House and obstructed the government’s repeated efforts to get them back.

As part of its investigation, the Justice Department has interviewed Mr. Nauta on several occasions, according to one of the people. Those interviews started before the F.B.I. executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8 and carted off more than 11,000 documents, including about 100 that bore classification markings. Mr. Nauta has answered questions but is not formally cooperating with the investigation of Mr. Trump’s handling of the documents.

His lawyer, Stanley Woodward Jr., declined to comment. Taylor Budowich, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, accused the Biden administration of “colluding with the media through targeted leaks in an overt and illegal act of intimidation and tampering.”

The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that Mr. Trump directed an employee who had been interviewed by the F.B.I. to move boxes at Mar-a-Lago. It is not clear whether that employee was Mr. Nauta, and a person familiar with the matter and with Mr. Trump’s orbit said it could be a different staff member.

A top Justice Department official told Mr. Trump’s lawyers in recent weeks that the department believed he had still not returned all the documents. It is unclear if the boxes that were moved were among the material later retrieved by the F.B.I.

The National Archives, the federal agency that oversees presidential records, spent much of 2021 attempting to retrieve boxes of records that its officials had been told were in the White House residence at the end of the Trump presidency.

Some of Mr. Trump’s advisers tried to facilitate their return; one lawyer for Mr. Trump, Alex Cannon, told Mr. Trump to ship the boxes back as they were, instead of going through them, and that the archivists would return whatever was personal property, two people briefed on the matter said. Mr. Cannon told Mr. Trump’s aides not to go through the boxes because it was unclear what was in them, and the materials might require security clearances.

Mr. Trump instead went through the boxes himself in December, according to a person familiar with the move, and the archives sent people to retrieve 15 of them a month later. When they got the boxes, they found 184 classified documents, prompting alarm.

The Justice Department subsequently began an investigation and quickly concluded that Mr. Trump might not have returned all the material in his possession when he turned over the 15 boxes in January.

In a court filing in August, prosecutors said they had evidence that “government records were likely concealed and removed” from the Mar-a-Lago storage room even after the Justice Department had sent Mr. Trump’s office a subpoena for any remaining documents bearing classified markings. That led prosecutors to conclude that “efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation,” the government filing said.
The Justice Department’s effort to recover documents from Mr. Trump began in May, after the F.B.I. examined the 15 boxes of records the National Archives retrieved from Mar-a-Lago in January.

On May 11, lawyers for the Justice Department obtained a subpoena to retrieve all materials marked as classified that had not already been turned over by the former president. In response to the subpoena, Mr. Trump’s team presented F.B.I. agents on June 3 with 38 additional documents bearing classified markings. Among them were 17 labeled top secret.

But one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers present during that visit “explicitly prohibited government personnel from opening or looking inside any of the boxes that remained in the storage room, giving no opportunity for the government to confirm that no documents with classification markings remained,” the Justice Department filing in August said.

Mr. Trump’s team also provided the department’s national security division in June with a written statement on behalf of his office by one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers who was serving as the formal “custodian” of the files. While that person’s name has been redacted in government filings, multiple people have identified her as Christina Bobb.

The Justice Department subsequently obtained a subpoena for security camera footage from inside Mar-a-Lago, and documents filed in the case disclosed that the department had been working with “multiple civilian witnesses” before it sought the search warrant used to carry out the search of Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8.

During the search, F.B.I. agents found three classified documents in desks in Mr. Trump’s office, with more than 100 documents in 13 boxes or containers with classification markings in the residence, including some at the most restrictive levels, according to the Justice Department filing in August.

The investigation into Mr. Trump’s handling of the documents is just one of an array of legal problems he faces. The Justice Department is separately investigating the efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election and the events that led to the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. The district attorney of Fulton County, Ga., is also conducting a broad inquiry into attempts by Mr. Trump and several of his allies to overturn Mr. Trump’s defeat in the election.

On Thursday, the House committee investigating Jan. 6 is scheduled to hold what is likely to be its last full-scale public hearing. The panel has said it plans to disclose new information about Mr. Trump’s state of mind in the chaotic postelection period and his central role in the effort to remain in power despite his loss to Joseph R. Biden Jr.
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Re: FBI is raiding Mar-a-Lago

#122 Post by jarnon » Fri Oct 21, 2022 7:38 pm

Washington Post wrote:Mar-a-Lago classified papers held U.S. secrets about Iran and China
Iran’s missile program, U.S. intelligence work aimed at China were among the most sensitive material seized by the FBI, people familiar with the matter say


By Devlin Barrett

Some of the classified documents recovered by the FBI from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and private club included highly sensitive intelligence regarding Iran and China, according to people familiar with the matter. If shared with others, the people said, such information could expose intelligence-gathering methods that the United States wants to keep hidden from the world.

At least one of the documents seized by the FBI describes Iran’s missile program, according to these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe an ongoing investigation. Other documents described highly sensitive intelligence work aimed at China, they said.

Unauthorized disclosures of specific information in the documents would pose multiple risks, experts say. People aiding U.S. intelligence efforts could be endangered, and collection methods could be compromised. In addition, other countries or U.S. adversaries could retaliate against the United States for actions it has taken in secret.

The classified documents about Iran and China are considered among the most sensitive the FBI has recovered to date in its investigation of Trump and his aides for possible mishandling of classified information, obstruction and destruction of government records, the people said. The criminal probe is unfolding even as the Justice Department and a district attorney in Georgia investigate alleged efforts by Trump and others to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, and as a House select committee has subpoenaed the former president seeking documents and testimony related to those allegations.

Trump has denied wrongdoing in having the documents at Mar-a-Lago, claiming in a recent television interview that he declassified any documents in his possession, and that a president can declassify information “even by thinking about it.” National security lawyers have derided those claims.

A spokesman for the former president did not respond to requests for comment Friday morning. But after this article published online, Trump posted on social media, decrying what he called leaks “on the Document Hoax” and suggesting that the FBI and the National Archives and Records Administration were trying to frame him.

“Who could ever trust corrupt, weaponized agencies, and that includes NARA,” Trump wrote. “ … Also who knows what NARA and the FBI plant into documents, or subtract from documents — we will never know, will we?”

Some of the most sensitive materials were recovered in the FBI’s court-approved search of Trump’s home on Aug. 8, in which agents seized about 13,000 documents, 103 of them classified and 18 of them top secret, according to court papers.

Those papers were the third batch of classified documents recovered in the course of the investigation. Boxes voluntarily sent from Mar-a-Lago to the National Archives and Records Administration earlier this year were found to contain 184 classified documents, 25 of which were marked top secret, according to court records. In June, Trump’s representatives responded to a subpoena by giving investigators 38 additional classified documents.

The Washington Post has previously reported that one of the documents seized in the FBI search described a foreign country’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities. The people discussing the case would not say if that intelligence related to Iran, China or some other nation. Iran’s missile program and nuclear capabilities are closely watched by the Western world; U.S. intelligence agencies believe Tehran is close to having enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon, but has not demonstrated the mastery of some technologies necessary to deploy such weapons, such as the ability to integrate a nuclear warhead with a long-range delivery system.

The people familiar with the matter said that many of the more sensitive documents Trump or his aides apparently took to Mar-a-Lago after he left the White House are top-level analysis papers that do not contain sources’ names. But even without individual identifiers, such documents can provide valuable clues to foreign adversaries about how the United States may be gathering intelligence, and from whom, the people said.

Some of the seized documents detail top-secret U.S. operations so closely guarded that many senior national security officials are not informed about them, The Post reported in September. Only the president, some members of his Cabinet or a near-Cabinet-level official could authorize government officials to know details of these special-access programs, people have said. Investigators conducting the Mar-a-Lago probe did not initially have the authority to review that material.

The new information about the documents obtained by The Post highlight what current and former intelligence officials say was the inherent risk posed by removing highly classified material from strictly guarded government buildings and keeping them in a private club filled with staffers, guests and visitors.

David Laufman, a former senior Justice Department official who handled cases involving mishandling of classified information, said the “exceptional sensitivity” of the material found at Mar-a-Lago will count as an aggravating factor as prosecutors weigh whether to file charges in the case.

“The exceptional sensitivity of these documents, and the reckless exposure of invaluable sources and methods of U.S. intelligence capabilities concerning these foreign adversaries, will certainly influence the Justice Department’s determination of whether to charge Mr. Trump or others with willful retention of national defense information under the Espionage Act,” Laufman said.

The FBI referred questions about the documents to the Justice Department, which declined to comment for this article.

Trump and his most ardent supporters have dismissed the criminal probe as an effort to undermine the former president — who remains the most influential figure in the Republican Party and talks openly about running for the White House again in 2024.

Officials at the National Archives began seeking the return of government records from the Trump administration last year, after officials came to believe that some records — such as letters from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — were unaccounted for, and perhaps in Trump’s possession.
After months of back and forth, Trump agreed in January to turn over 15 boxes of material. When archivists examined the boxes, they found 184 documents marked classified, including 25 marked top secret, which were scattered throughout the boxes in no particular order, according to court filings.

Archives officials notified the Justice Department, and authorities soon came to believe that Trump had not turned over all the classified material in his possession. Justice officials secured a grand jury subpoena in May, seeking any documents still at Mar-a-Lago that bore classified markings. In response, Trump’s advisers met with government agents and prosecutors at Mar-a-Lago in early June, handing over a sealed envelope containing another 38 classified documents, including 17 marked top secret, according to court papers.

According to government filings, Trump’s representatives claimed at the meeting that a diligent search had been conducted for all classified documents at the club.

That meeting, which included a visit to the storage room where Trump’s advisers said the relevant boxes of documents were kept, did not satisfy investigators, who were not allowed to inspect the boxes they saw in the storage room, according to government court filings.

Five days later, senior Justice Department official Jay Bratt wrote to Trump’s lawyers to remind them that Mar-a-Lago “does not include a secure location authorized for the storage of classified information.” Bratt wrote that based on the visit, it appeared classified documents “have not been handled in an appropriate manner or stored in an appropriate location.”

“Accordingly, we ask that the room at Mar-a-Lago where the documents had been stored be secured and that all of the boxes that were moved from the White House to Mar-a-Lago (along with any other items in that room) be preserved in that room in their current condition until further notice.”

Agents continued to gather evidence that Trump was apparently not complying with either government requests or subpoena demands. According to people familiar with the investigation, security camera footage showed boxes being carried from the storage area after the May subpoena was issued — and a key witness told the FBI that he moved the boxes at Trump’s instruction.

With that evidence in hand, the Justice Department decided to seek a judge’s approval to search the former president’s home.
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Re: FBI is raiding Mar-a-Lago

#123 Post by jarnon » Fri Nov 18, 2022 2:43 pm

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Re: FBI is raiding Mar-a-Lago

#124 Post by jarnon » Fri Mar 03, 2023 10:24 am

Washington Post wrote:Showdown before the raid: FBI agents and prosecutors argued over Trump
An exclusive look at behind-the-scenes deliberations as both sides wrestled with a national security case that has potentially far-reaching political consequences

By Carol D. Leonnig, Devlin Barrett, Perry Stein and Aaron C. Davis

Prosecutors argued that new evidence suggested Trump was knowingly concealing secret documents at his Palm Beach, Fla., home and urged the FBI to conduct a surprise raid at the property. But two senior FBI officials who would be in charge of leading the search resisted the plan as too combative and proposed instead to seek Trump’s permission to search his property, according to the four people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive investigation.

Prosecutors ultimately prevailed in that dispute, one of several previously unreported clashes in a tense tug of war between two arms of the Justice Department over how aggressively to pursue a criminal investigation of a former president. The FBI conducted an unprecedented raid on Aug. 8, recovering more than 100 classified items, among them a document describing a foreign government’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities.

Starting in May, FBI agents in the Washington field office had sought to slow the probe, urging caution given its extraordinary sensitivity, the people said.

Some of those field agents wanted to shutter the criminal investigation altogether in early June, after Trump’s legal team asserted a diligent search had been conducted and all classified records had been turned over, according to some people with knowledge of the discussions.

The idea of closing the probe was not something that was discussed or considered by FBI leadership and would not have been approved, a senior law enforcement official said.

This account reveals for the first time the degree of tension among law enforcement officials and behind-the-scenes deliberations as they wrestled with a national security case that has potentially far-reaching political consequences.

The disagreements stemmed in large part from worries among officials that whatever steps they took in investigating a former president would face intense scrutiny and second-guessing by people inside and outside the government. However, the agents, who typically perform the bulk of the investigative work in cases, and the prosecutors, who guide agents’ work and decide on criminal charges, ultimately focused on very different pitfalls, according to people familiar with their discussions.

On one side, federal prosecutors in the department’s national security division advocated aggressive ways to secure some of the country’s most closely guarded secrets, which they feared Trump was intentionally hiding at Mar-a-Lago; on the other, FBI agents in the Washington field office urged more caution with such a high-profile matter, recommending they take a cooperative rather than confrontational approach.

Both sides were mindful of the intense scrutiny the case was drawing and felt they had to be above reproach while investigating a former president then expected to run for reelection. While trying to follow the Justice Department playbook for classified records probes, investigators on both sides braced for Trump to follow his own playbook of publicly attacking the integrity of their investigation, according to people with knowledge of their discussions.

The FBI agents’ caution also was rooted in the fact that mistakes in prior probes of Hillary Clinton and Trump had proved damaging to the FBI, and the cases subjected the bureau to sustained public attacks from partisans, the people said.

Prosecutors countered that the FBI failing to treat Trump as it had other government employees who were not truthful about classified records could threaten the nation’s security. As evidence surfaced suggesting that Trump or his team was holding back sensitive records, the prosecutors pushed for quick action to recover them, according to the people familiar with the discussions.

While the people who described these sensitive discussions disagreed on some particulars, they agreed on many aspects of the dispute.

Spokespeople for the Justice Department and the FBI declined to comment for this story. Attorney General Merrick Garland, asked about this report at a Senate hearing Wednesday, said he could not describe the investigation but added that in his experience as a prosecutor “there is often a robust discussion and it’s encouraged among investigators and prosecutors.”

It is not unusual for FBI agents and Justice Department prosecutors to disagree during an investigation about how aggressively to pursue witnesses or other evidence. Often, those disagreements are temporary flare-ups that are debated, decided and resolved in due course.

While the FBI tends to have great discretion in the day-to-day conduct of investigations, it is up to prosecutors to decide whether to file criminal charges — and, like the prosecutors, the director of the FBI ultimately reports to the attorney general. The Mar-a-Lago case was unusual not just for its focus on a former president, but in the way it was closely monitored at every step by senior Justice Department officials. Garland said he “personally approved” the search of Trump’s property.

It’s unclear how the investigation may have been reshaped if the two sides had settled their disputes differently. Had the criminal investigation been closed in June, as some FBI field agents discussed, legal experts said it’s unlikely agents would have yet recovered the items found in the FBI’s raid of Trump’s residence.

Some inside the probe argued the infighting delayed the search by months, ultimately reducing the time prosecutors had to reach a decision on possible charges. Others contend the discussions were necessary to ensure the investigation proceeded on the surest footing, enabling officials to gather more evidence before they executed the search, people familiar with the dynamics said.

In November, before prosecutors had finished their work and decided whether to charge Trump or anyone else, he announced his campaign to retake the White House in 2024, leading Garland to appoint a special counsel, Jack Smith, to complete the investigation.

A collision course
From the moment the FBI and Justice Department received a formal referral on Feb. 7 from the National Archives and Records Administration to investigate missing classified records that could be in Trump’s possession, FBI investigators and federal prosecutors knew they were taking on a highly charged and sensitive case.

Archives officials reported that, after they had pleaded with Trump’s representatives for months, the former president had in January returned 15 boxes of government records he had stored at Mar-a-Lago since his presidency ended. Sifting through the boxes’ contents, archivists were shocked by what they found: 184 classified documents consisting of 700 pages. Archives officials said they had reason to believe Trump still had more sensitive or classified documents he took from the White House.

Prosecutors in the Justice Department’s national security division needed to answer two immediate questions: Was national security damaged by classified records being kept at Trump’s Florida club, and were any more sensitive records still in Trump’s possession?

Prosecutors and FBI agents were set on a collision course in April, when Trump through his lawyers tried to block the FBI from reviewing the classified records the Archives found. That set off alarm bells for prosecutors because it signaled he might be seeking to hide something, according to people familiar with the case. In preliminary interviews with witnesses in April and May, including Trump associates and staff, investigators were told of many more boxes of presidential records at Mar-a-Lago that could contain classified materials — similar in packaging to the boxes shipped there from the White House, and to those returned to the Archives in January, the people said.

The prosecutors and FBI agents began clashing in previously unreported incidents in early May, the people said. Jay Bratt, the prosecutor leading the department’s counterespionage work, advocated seeking a judge’s warrant for an unannounced search at the property to quickly recover any sensitive documents still there.

The FBI often conducts raids of properties without advance notice when investigators have reason to believe evidence is being withheld or could be destroyed. Some prosecutors saw guideposts in a related case a decade earlier, when Army Gen. David H. Petraeus lied to FBI agents about whether he had given classified information to a book author with whom he was having an affair. Agents executed a search warrant at Petraeus’s house and retrieved a cache of notebooks in which the prominent general improperly had stored extensive amounts of classified information.

But FBI agents viewed a Mar-a-Lago search in May as premature and combative, especially given that it involved raiding the home of a former president. That spring, top officials at FBI headquarters met with prosecutors to review the strength of evidence that could be used to justify a surprise search, according to two people familiar with their work.

Encountering resistance, Bratt agreed for the time being to subpoena Trump. On June 3, Bratt and a small number of FBI agents visited Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump’s lawyer and collect any classified records the Trump team had found to comply with the subpoena. That day, Trump’s lawyer, Evan Corcoran, handed over an expandable envelope containing 38 classified records and produced a letter signed by another lawyer, Christina Bobb, asserting that a diligent search had been conducted and all classified records had been turned over.

Some FBI field agents then argued to prosecutors that they were inclined to believe Trump and his team had delivered everything the government sought to protect and said the bureau should close down its criminal investigation, according to some people familiar with the discussions.

But they said national security prosecutors pushed back and instead urged FBI agents to gather more evidence by conducting follow-up interviews with witnesses and obtaining Mar-a-Lago surveillance video from the Trump Organization.

The government sought surveillance video footage by subpoena in late June. It showed someone moving boxes from the area where records had been stored, not long after Trump was put on notice to return all such records, according to people familiar with the probe. That evidence suggested it was likely more classified records remained at Mar-a-Lago, the people said, despite the claim of Trump’s lawyers. It also painted for both sides a far more worrisome picture — one that would soon build the legal justification for the August raid.

By mid-July, the prosecutors were eager for the FBI to scour the premises of Mar-a-Lago. They argued that the probable cause for a search warrant was more than solid, and the likelihood of finding classified records and evidence of obstruction was high, according to the four people.

But the prosecutors learned FBI agents were still loath to conduct a surprise search. They also heard from top FBI officials that some agents were simply afraid: They worried taking aggressive steps investigating Trump could blemish or even end their careers, according to some people with knowledge of the discussions. One official dubbed it “the hangover of Crossfire Hurricane,” a reference to the FBI investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible connections to the Trump campaign, the people said. As president, Trump repeatedly targeted some FBI officials involved in the Russia case.

A rift within the FBI
Against that backdrop, Bratt and other senior national security prosecutors, including Assistant Attorney General Matt Olsen and George Toscas, a top counterintelligence official, met about a week before the Aug. 8 raid with FBI agents on their turf, inside an FBI conference room.

The prosecutors brought with them a draft search warrant and argued that the FBI had no other choice but to search Mar-a-Lago as soon as practically possible, according to people with knowledge of the meeting. Prosecutors said the search was the only safe way to recover an untold number of sensitive government records that witnesses had said were still on the property.

Steven M. D’Antuono, then the head of the FBI Washington field office, which was running the investigation, was adamant the FBI should not do a surprise search, according to the people.

D’Antuono said he would agree to lead such a raid only if he were ordered to, according to two of the people. The two other people said D’Antuono did not refuse to do the search but argued that it should be a consensual search agreed to by Trump’s legal team. He repeatedly urged that the FBI instead seek to persuade Corcoran to agree to a consensual search of the property, said all four of the people.

Tempers ran high in the meeting. Bratt raised his voice at times and stressed to the FBI agents that the time for trusting Trump and his lawyer was over, some of the people said. He reminded them of the new footage suggesting Trump or his aides could be concealing classified records at the Florida club.

D’Antuono and some fellow FBI officials complained how bad it would look for agents with “FBI” emblazoned on their jackets to invade a former president’s home, according to some people with knowledge of the meeting. The FBI’s top counterintelligence official, Alan E. Kohler Jr., then asked the senior FBI agents to consider how bad it would look if the FBI chose not to act and government secrets were hidden at Mar-a-Lago, the people said.

D’Antuono also questioned why the search would target presidential records as well as classified records, particularly because the May subpoena had only sought the latter.

“We are not the presidential records police,” D’Antuono said, according to people familiar with the exchange.

Later, D’Antuono asked if Trump was officially the subject of the criminal investigation.

“What does that matter?” Bratt replied, according to the people. Bratt said the most important fact was that highly sensitive government records probably remained at Mar-a-Lago and could be destroyed or spirited away if the FBI did not recover them soon.

FBI agents on the case worried the prosecutors were being overly aggressive. They found it worrisome, too, that Bratt did not seem to think it mattered whether Trump was the official subject of the probe. They feared any of these features might not stand up to scrutiny if an inspector general or congressional committee chose to retrace the investigators’ steps, according to the people.

Jason Jones, the FBI’s general counsel who is considered a confidant of FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, agreed the team had sufficient probable cause to justify a search warrant. D’Antuono agreed, too, but said they should still try to persuade Corcoran to let them search without a warrant, the people said.

The disagreement over seeking Corcoran’s consent centered partly on how each side viewed Trump’s lawyer. The prosecutors — as well as some officials at FBI headquarters — were highly suspicious of him and feared that appealing to Corcoran risked that word would spread through Trump’s circle, giving the former president or his associates time to hide or destroy evidence, according to people familiar with the internal debate.

Some FBI agents, on the other hand, had more trust in Corcoran — a former federal prosecutor who had recently returned to practicing law and represented Stephen K. Bannon, a former Trump adviser, against criminal contempt charges. The agents drafted a possible script they could use to pitch to Trump’s lawyer on a consensual search. D’Antuono’s team said they could keep surveillance on Mar-a-Lago and act quickly if they saw any scramble to move evidence. The prosecutors refused, saying it was too risky, the people said.

In the meeting, some attendees viewed Toscas, a Justice Department veteran who had worked with the FBI through the Crossfire Hurricane and Clinton email investigations, as a prosecutor whose words would carry special weight with the FBI agents. He told D’Antuono he had shared the agents’ skepticism, but was now “swayed” that the evidence was too strong not to get a search warrant, according to people familiar with the discussion.

“George, that’s great, but you haven’t swayed me,” D’Antuono replied.

Jones, the FBI’s general counsel, said he planned to recommend to Deputy FBI Director Paul Abbate that the FBI seek a warrant for the search, the people said. D’Antuono replied that he would recommend that they not.

The raid
But prosecutors appeared unwilling to wait and debate further, according to people familiar with the discussions. Olsen, the assistant attorney general for national security, appealed to senior officials in FBI headquarters to push their agents to conduct the raid. Abbate handed down his instructions a day later: The Washington field office led by D’Antuono would execute the surprise search.

On Aug. 5, FBI agents quietly sought and received approval from a federal magistrate judge in Florida to search Mar-a-Lago for documents. The search was planned for the following Monday, Aug. 8.

Prosecutors remained somewhat on guard until the day of the raid, as they continued to hear rumblings of dissent from the Washington field office, according to three people familiar with the case. Some of the people said prosecutors heard some FBI agents wanted to call Corcoran once they arrived at Mar-a-Lago and wait for him to fly down to join them in the search; prosecutors said that would not work.

Just days before the scheduled search, prosecutors got a request from FBI headquarters to put off the search for another day, according to people familiar with the matter. The FBI told prosecutors the bureau planned to announce big news that week — charges against an Iranian for plotting to assassinate former national security adviser John Bolton — and did not want the impact of that case to be overshadowed or complicated by media coverage of the Mar-a-Lago raid. It is common for the Justice Department and FBI to fine-tune the timing of certain actions or announcements to avoid one law enforcement priority competing with another. But prosecutors, fatigued by months of fighting with agents in the FBI’s field office, wanted no delay, no matter the reason, the people said. The search would proceed as scheduled.

FBI agents found ways to make the search less confrontational than it otherwise could have been, according to people familiar with the investigation: The search would take place when Trump was in New York and not in Palm Beach; the Secret Service would receive a heads-up a few hours before FBI agents arrived to avoid any law enforcement conflict; and agents would wear white polo shirts and khakis to cut a lower profile than if they wore their traditional blue jackets with FBI insignia.

On Aug. 8, FBI agents scoured Trump’s residence, office and storage areas, and left with more than 100 classified records, 18 of them top-secret. Prosecutors claimed vindication in the trove of bright color-coded folders that agents recovered.

Some documents were classified at such a restricted level that seasoned national security investigators lacked the proper authorization to look at them, leading to consternation on the prosecution team. They involved highly restricted “special access programs” that require Cabinet-level sign-off even for officials with top-secret clearances to review. The documents described Iran’s missile program and records related to highly sensitive intelligence aimed at China, The Washington Post previously has reported.

In late fall, Bratt and his team began sketching out the evidence that potentially pointed to Trump’s obstruction, with an expectation that the prosecutors together would soon make a recommendation on whether to charge the former president, according to people familiar with the case. Bratt’s team began to button up witness accounts and stress-test factual evidence against the law.

Meanwhile, in late October, amid news reports that Trump was looking to soon announce another bid for the presidency, Garland told aides he was seriously contemplating appointing a special counsel to take over the investigation, as well as a separate criminal probe looking at Trump and his allies’ effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election — a rare procedure designed to ensure public faith in fair investigations.

On Nov. 15, Trump took the stage in the Mar-a-Lago ballroom — at the same property where FBI agents had searched three months earlier — and announced that he would run for president again in 2024. The Justice Department’s national security division leaders who had pushed the FBI to be more aggressive pursuing Trump did not finish the investigation or reach a charging decision before a new chief took over.

On Nov. 18, Garland sent word to the prosecutors working on both of the probes to come to Justice Department headquarters for a meeting that morning. He wanted to privately inform them that he planned later that day to appoint a special counsel. Garland told them they could choose their next steps, but he hoped they would join the special counsel’s team for the good of the two investigations, people familiar with the conversation said.

Just after 2 p.m., Garland stood before cameras to announce he had appointed Smith to take over the investigations. Flanked by three of his top deputies, Garland said the Justice Department had the integrity to continue the investigations fairly but that turning them over to an outside prosecutor was “the right thing to do.”

“The extraordinary circumstances presented here demand it,” he added.

Spencer S. Hsu contributed to this report.
A rare glimpse into the inner workings of the Justice Dept.
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