Feds cite efforts to obstruct probe of docs at Trump estate

[dalton99a]

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Justice Department said Tuesday it had uncovered efforts to obstruct its investigation into the discovery of classified documents at former President Donald Trump's Florida estate, saying "government records were likely concealed and removed" from a storage room at the property.

The assertion was made in a court filing Tuesday night that lays out the most detailed chronology to date of interactions between Justice Department officials and Trump representatives over the presence of the documents at Mar-a-Lago.

The department says Trump's lawyers told them in June that all the records that had come from the White House were stored in one location -- a Mar-a-Lago storage room -- and that "there were no other records stored in any private office space or other location at the Premises and that all available boxes were searched."

In their search earlier this month, however, agents found classified documents both in the storage room as well as in the former president's office -- including three classified documents found not in boxes, but in office desks.



Read more: https://apnews.com/article/mar-a-lago-government-and-politics-1fef158c3a66bfc0ba6224570753ba47

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This image contained in a court filing by the Department of Justice on Aug. 30, 2022, and redacted by in part by the FBI, shows a photo of documents seized during the Aug. 8 search by the FBI of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. The Justice Department says it has uncovered efforts to obstruct its investigation into the discovery of classified records at former President Donald Trump's Florida estate. (Department of Justice via AP)

[Blue Owl]

1. Hope they're checking the Mag a Lardo toilets

I can picture FF45 instructing his goons to flush evidence down the ‘ol crapper…

[Cha]

2. So Much Thanks to All Those Doing

the Heavy Lifting to NAIL the Treasonous FF.

[sprinkleeninow]

8. What corks my butt is that this continual load of crap we're subjected to

not only is toxic to personal and corporate environs, but the enormous time and resources squandered due to primarily one individual.

[Irish_Dem]

23. Thinking the same thing. How much money and time spent dealing with the GOP crime syndicate?

Trump and the GOP criminals are costing the US taxpayer a fortune.

And US government is neglecting other duties.

[Cozmo]

3. Any questions???

[orleans]

4. this first sentence ...

But department officials are not close to filing charges, if they ever will. And it remains unclear what specific materials the government recovered in the search — or what actual risk to national security was posed by Mr. Trump’s decision to retain the materials.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/31/us/politics/trump-mar-a-lago-documents.html

[herding cats]

6. Was it Haberman?

Because that reads like her input.

[BadgerMom]

7. She was the last reporter listed on the byline.

The Times just makes me see red.

[Wicked Blue]

19. Traditionally the last name in a byline is the reporter who actually wrote the story

and the ones ahead of it contributed to the story.

That's the way it was at the Newark Star-Ledger when I worked there ages ago.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. NYT was burying all kinds of ledes

Last edited Wed Aug 31, 2022, 06:29 AM - Edit history (2)

WaPo was emphasizing that the filing was attempting to show clear obstruction.

I usually have the radio on when I got in bed (on a CBS news affiliate) and had awoken to go to the bathroom about 1 am when I heard their version of the story and their soundbite report had nothing of the sort about not filing charges as tossed in there by the NYT.

Justice Dept. says Trump team may have hidden, moved classified papers

Prosecutors’ filing suggests Trump advisers misled officials trying to recover sensitive papers; photo shows papers marked ‘Top Secret’ spread out on the floor

By Devlin Barrett
Updated August 31, 2022 at 2:12 a.m. EDT | Published August 31, 2022 at 12:00 a.m. EDT

(snip)

The filing offers the most detailed, blow-by-blow account to date of the interactions between Trump’s team and government officials, who over the course of many months became increasingly desperate to find and contain all of the classified material stashed at Mar-a-Lago.

In parts of the filing, using only their job descriptions, prosecutors paint Trump’s lawyer, Evan Corcoran, and custodian of records, Christina Bobb, as so uncooperative as to lead agents to suspect the Trump team might be obstructing the investigation.

The filing, for instance, says that when FBI agents and Jay Bratt, the chief of the counterintelligence and export control section at the Justice Department, met with Trump’s two representatives in early June, “the former President’s counsel 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.”

Yet, earlier this month, Bobb told The Washington Post that the lawyers showed the federal officials the boxes, and that Bratt and others spent some time looking through the material.

(snip)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/31/trump-documents-removed-storage-room/

I don't know if they would go this route or not, but they could conceivably individually charge for each mishandled document (although it might end up with finding the most critical ones and using those for charges). So if there were 200 covered docs, that would mean 200 charges.

[Ponietz]

16. When 100 one-dollar bills are stolen in a single robbery,

there is only one actus reas so only one count of robbery. The number of counts depends on DOJ’s ability to show discrete acts.

[BumRushDaShow]

17. I was thinking that... (based on how people like Reality Winner were handled, with a bundled charge)

But since these were different levels of classified info that had been removed, held, requested back, still not returned, and then found through a search and seizure, I was wondering if each category might merit its own charge.

I.e., using your robbery analogy - stealing 100 1-dollar bills PLUS stealing 10 gold coins from someone's safe-deposit box, PLUS taking a historic paper currency note on display at the bank (all currency but each set having their own unique monetary and/or historic value).

[Meadowoak]

5. try Bedminster cemetery.

[Novara]

14. Unlikely

Why would he hide them when you see photographic evidence of the highest classification material strewn about the floor? It's obvious he handled this material like it was a grocery list. That doesn't indicate the consciousness of a need to hide anything.

[Roy Rolling]

10. Next Excuse from GOP

“He can’t read! Who is he to know what TOP SECRET -SCI means?”

[COL Mustard]

13. Eh - They're just cover sheets

Prove there was something classified under them.


(Next excuse from the MAGA acolytes.)

[VWolf]

21. Jesus, don't give them any ideas! n/t

[Wicked Blue]

20. Perhaps he has dyslexia

and thought the docs said ICS-TERCES POT

[gab13by13]

11. What really stands out to me

is the question I have been asking here; why did judge Cannon get this case? I asked over and over why she had jurisdiction?

Well it seems my question may have been answered, she doesn't have jurisdiction and DOJ told her she doesn't. So she has 2 choices, drop this nonsense or keep fluffing Trump and DOJ is going to appeal her decision by going after her.

[Joinfortmill]

12. Trump is insane.

[Novara]

15. Looks like mango mussolini fucked around and found out

So he whined and cried and SWORE up and down that all the material was in one storage place, and not classified. HE OPENED THE DOOR so that the DOJ could BURY him. And this filing is burying him. There's clear and obvious obstruction, on top of violations of the espionage act, and filing false claims and other stuff I can't even think of.

The passports? Were in his desk drawer along with other classified documents, which means, according to legal twitter, that he was actively using those documents. There's an intent implied there, although no one has specifically spelled it out. Me? I'm guessing he was on the phone looking for buyers and perhaps planning a trip to make a delivery.

But I hate conspiracy theories, so I'll stop now.

His lawyer - the one who filed a legal attestation that nothing left was classified and they diligently looked through everything - better get herself a damn good lawyer. She won't have a law license once this is over.

[Justice matters.]

18. THAT mofo who obstructed justice ALL his destructive (for others) life?

Nahwww...

And Justice let him go and destroy more lives (up to a million in the case of COVID-19)

Mango Mussolini-Franco-Hitler wannabe is above the law.

Because Justice has become a three-tier policy:

1- For black and brown people

2- For poor people (many belong to the 1st tier)

3- The rich and powerful (destructors of fairness & nature)

Nahwwww...

[scipan]

22. I read a bit of the actual filing. This is good:

Trump will hate this:

Plaintiff’s motion to appoint a special master, enjoin further review of seized materials,
and require the return of seized items fails for multiple, independent reasons. As an initial
matter, the former President lacks standing to seek judicial relief or oversight as to Presidential
records because those records do not belong to him. The Presidential Records Act makes clear
that “[t]he United States” has “complete ownership, possession, and control” of them. 44
U.S.C. § 2202. Furthermore, this Court lacks jurisdiction to adjudicate Plaintiff’s Fourth
Amendment challenges to the validity of the search warrant and his arguments for returning
or suppressing the materials seized. For those reasons and others, Plaintiff has shown no basis
for the Court to grant injunctive relief. Plaintiff is not likely to succeed on the merits; he will
suffer no injury absent an injunction—let alone an irreparable injury; and the harms to the
government and the public would far outweigh any benefit to Plaintiff.

1 Plaintiff also sought a more detailed receipt for the property seized during the August 8,
2022 execution of the search warrant. D.E. 1 at 19-21; see generally D.E. 28. The Court ordered
the government to file under seal “[a] more detailed Receipt for Property specifying all
property seized pursuant to the search warrant.” D.E. 29 at 2. The government filed today
under seal, in accordance with the Court’s order, the more detailed receipt. Although the
receipt of property already provided to Plaintiff at the time of the search, see In Re Sealed Search
Warrant, No. 22-MJ-8332 (S.D. Fla.) (hereinafter, “MJ Docket”), D.E. 17 at 5-7, is sufficient
under Fed. R. Crim. P. 41, the government is prepared, given the extraordinary
circumstances, to unseal the more detailed receipt and provide it immediately to Plaintiff.

ETA: I wanted to also bold a few more important things to make it easier.