Trump's comments on Mar-a-Lago documents 'like red meat to a prosecutor'

Jabin Botsford
798
Ken Dilanian and Michael Kosnar
Thu, May 11, 2023 at 2:59 PM MDT




Former President Donald Trump’s comments Wednesday night about his handling of classified documents appeared to contradict statements by his lawyers, and provide potentially important evidence for federal prosecutors investigating whether to charge him with a crime, legal experts say.

Trump’s lawyers told Congress last month that the classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago compound got there by accident. But when questioned about the issue at a CNN town hall, Trump said he had “every right” to take them from the White House.

“I didn’t make a secret of it,” he said. “You know, the boxes were stationed outside the White House, people were taking pictures of it.”

He said he didn’t recall having shown secret material to others, which is a key question prosecutors would want to answer. Disclosing classified material to people not authorized to receive it is a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison.


Asked if he showed classified documents to others, he answered, “Not really…I would have the right to,” later adding, “not that I can think of.”

“Trump’s comments hurt him, and what he said is significant,” said John Fishwick, a former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia who was appointed during the Obama administration.

“Not only do they contradict his legal position, he admits to possession and knowledge of classified documents that he is taking from the White House. Jack Smith will make good use of last night’s town hall and it will help him button up his case.”

Smith, a special counsel, is running investigations into the classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago and into Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Another special counsel, Robert Hur, is investigating the circumstances around the classified documents found at President Joe Biden’s home and office.

Andrew Weissmann, a former FBI general counsel and NBC News contributor who worked for special counsel Robert Mueller in the investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, said Trump’s unwillingness to rule out showing classified documents to others "is like red meat to a prosecutor.”

In their letter last month to the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Trump’s lawyers suggested that classified documents were sent to Mar-a-Lago unintentionally, mixed in by accident with other records.

“When President Trump left office, there was little time to prepare for the outgoing transition from the presidency,” said the letter from attorneys Tim Parlatore, John Rowley, James Trusty and Lindsay Halligan. “Unlike his three predecessors, each of whom had over four years to prepare for their departure upon completion of their second term, President Trump had a much shorter time to wind up his administration. White House staffers and General Service Administration (“GSA”) employees quickly packed everything into boxes and shipped them to Florida.”

The lawyers suggested later in the letter that Trump initially was not aware of the presence of classified material.

"Trump asked his staff to retrieve 15 boxes that had been moved to Mar-a-Lago so he could see what was in them before they were sent to NARA in Washington, D.C.," they wrote, referring to the National Archives and Records Administration. "However, due to other demands on his time, President Trump subsequently directed his staff to ship the boxes to NARA without any review by him or his staff."

They added that the discovery of classified documents at the homes of Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence should dispel “any doubts that the presence of marked documents in the boxes was the result of White House institutional processes, rather than intentional decisions by President Trump.”

Trump seemed to undermine that account Wednesday night, saying, “I was there and I took what I took and it gets declassified,” which is not true.

One of Trump's lawyers pushed back against the idea that such comments are problematic.

"It’s completely consistent with what was in our letter," Parlatore said in an email. "He was allowed to take these documents with him, because the customs that have been followed…for past presidents were not followed for President Trump. This is one of the reasons why we have asked Congress to take a look at this to fix it for future administrations."

Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton told NBC News last year that Trump had a habit of keeping highly classified documents given to him an intelligence briefings. He said aides began blowing up maps and charts to poster size so Trump could not pocket them.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-comments-mar-lago-documents-205929399.html

 

I do not belie what he is saying because a lawyer leaving would have to say that otherwise it the same as saying my former client is guilty. I am pretty sure its MAGA. Make Attorneys Get Attorneys.


Key Trump attorney says he's departing legal team as Mar-a-Lago probe intensifies

FILE - Former President Donald Trump speaks at his Mar-a-Lago estate Tuesday, April 4, 2023, in Palm Beach, Fla. Timothy Parlatore, a key lawyer for former President Donald Trump says he's leaving the legal team, a move that comes as a special counsel investigation into the retention of classified documents shows signs of being in its final stages. Timothy Parlatore told The Associated Press that his departure had nothing to do with Trump and was not a reflection on his view of the Justice Department’s investigation, which he has long called misguided and overly aggressive, or on the strength of the government’s evidence. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
70
ERIC TUCKER
Wed, May 17, 2023 at 7:46 AM MDT




WASHINGTON (AP) — A key lawyer for former President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he was leaving the legal team, a move that comes as a special counsel investigation into the retention of classified documents shows signs of being in its final stages.

Timothy Parlatore told The Associated Press that his departure had nothing to do with Trump and was not a reflection on his view of the Justice Department's investigation, which he has long called misguided and overly aggressive, or on the strength of the government's evidence. He said he believed he had served Trump well.

Other lawyers, including former Justice Department prosecutor James Trusty, are continuing to represent Trump in Washington investigations.

CNN earlier reported Parlatore’s departure.


Parlatore has long been a key member of the team representing Trump in an investigation by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith into the possession of hundreds of classified documents at the former president's Florida home, Mar-a-Lago as well as into possible efforts to obstruct that probe.

A grand jury over the last several months has heard from a broad array of witnesses close to Trump. Federal prosecutors in March questioned another of Trump's lawyers, M. Evan Corcoran, before the grand jury after successfully piercing attorney-client privilege. Parlatore testified voluntarily in December about efforts to recover classified documents in response to government demands.

Last month, Parlatore and other lawyers for Trump issued a letter to the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Mike Turner, laying out a series of defense arguments of Trump and saying that the Justice Department should be “ordered to stand down” in its investigation.

Besides the Mar-a-Lago probe, Smith has also been investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, with former Vice President Mike Pence among the grand jury witnesses in that probe. Manhattan prosecutors charged Trump in March arising from hush-money payments made to a porn star who said he had an extramarital sexual encounter with her years earlier.

In Georgia, prosecutors in Fulton County are expected to announce in coming months the results of an investigation into attempts to subvert Trump's election loss to President Joe Biden in that state.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/key-trump-attorney-says-hes-134641547.html

 

And another Trump lie goes down in flames.

Exclusive: New evidence in special counsel probe may undercut Trump’s claim documents he took were automatically declassified

By Jamie Gangel, Zachary Cohen, Evan Perez and Paula Reid, CNN
Updated 6:50 AM EDT, Thu May 18, 2023









Washington CNN —
The National Archives has informed former President Donald Trump that it is set to hand over to special counsel Jack Smith 16 records that show Trump and his top advisers had knowledge of the correct declassification process while he was president, according to multiple sources.

In a May 16 letter obtained by CNN, acting Archivist Debra Steidel Wall writes to Trump, “The 16 records in question all reflect communications involving close presidential advisers, some of them directed to you personally, concerning whether, why, and how you should declassify certain classified records.”

The 16 presidential records, which were subpoenaed earlier this year, may provide critical evidence establishing the former president’s awareness of the declassification process, a key part of the criminal investigation into Trump’s mishandling of classified documents.

The records may also provide insight into Trump’s intent and whether he willfully disregarded what he knew to be clearly established protocols, according to a source familiar with recent testimony provided to the grand jury by former top Trump officials.

Trump and his allies have insisted that as president, Trump did not have to follow a specific process to declassify documents. At a CNN town hall last week Trump repeated the claim that simply by removing classified documents from the White House he had declassified them. “And, by the way, they become automatically declassified when I took them,” Trump said.



According to the letter, Trump tried to block the special counsel from accessing the 16 records by asserting a claim of “constitutionally based privilege.” But in her letter, Wall rejects that claim, stating that the special counsel’s office has represented that it “is prepared to demonstrate with specificity to a court, why it is likely that the 16 records contain evidence that would be important to the grand jury’s investigation.”

The special counsel also told the Archives that the evidence is “not practically available from another source.”

The letter goes on to state that the records will be handed over on May 24, 2023 “unless prohibited by an intervening court order.”

A source close to Trump’s legal team told CNN that the former president has received several letters like this from the Archives over the course of the investigation.

Trump’s team may challenge this in court, this person said, but claimed in the past the Archives has handed over documents before the Trump team has had a chance to challenge the release in court.

Trump’s legal team would not reveal what was in the 16 records, but the source said the former president’s attempt to block the special counsel from accessing them is “more of a strategic fight about constitutional and presidential protections rather than keeping evidence from the special counsel.”

The special counsel’s office and the Archives declined to comment.

Jim Trusty, an attorney for Trump in the classified documents case, told CNN that the former president relied on constitutional authority to take the documents to Mar-a-Lago.

“At the end of his presidency, he relied on the constitutional authority as commander-in-chief, which is to take documents and take them to Mar-a-Lago while still president as he was at the time, and to effectively declassify and personalize them,” Trusty told CNN’s Sara Sidner of the former president. “He talked about declassifying them, but he didn’t need to.”

Last year, after the FBI seized classified and top secret documents from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, the former president and his allies claimed that Trump had a “standing order” to declassify documents he took from the Oval Office to the White House residence.

But 18 former top Trump administration officials said they never heard any such order issued during their time working for Trump, telling CNN that the claim was “ludicrous” “ridiculous,” and a “complete fiction.”

NARA’s letter to Trump comes amid a flurry of activity by Smith’s team, including grand jury appearances by former national security officials who testified that they told Trump there was a process for a president to declassify material, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The 16 records may help federal investigators overcome a significant obstacle to a potential prosecution of the former president. While presidents have ultimate declassification authority, the limits of that authority haven’t been tested in the courts.

That means the various claims by Trump and his allies that he declassified material without going through the standard process cannot be completely dismissed by the Justice Department.

In her letter, Wall says that NARA began searching for relevant records after receiving a subpoena from Smith’s team on Jan. 23, 2023. The Archives found 104 unclassified documents that matched what federal prosecutors had requested.

When notified that NARA intended to provide those documents to the grand jury, Trump’s legal team raised privilege concerns over 81 of those records. The Biden White House was also notified but told NARA the incumbent president would not assert privilege to block those records from being shared with the grand jury.

The special counsel was also given access to other records not challenged by the Trump team.

Ultimately, the special counsel identified the 16 records in question as relevant to the grand jury investigation.

In the CNN town hall last week, Trump misrepresented the Presidential Records Act, falsely claiming that he was “allowed” to take documents when he left office.

In reality, the Presidential Records Act provides that as soon as a president leaves office, the National Archives becomes the legal custodian of the president’s records, which belong to the public.

“I had every right to under the Presidential Records Act,” Trump said when asked by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins why he took documents when he left the White House. “You have the Presidential Records Act. I was there and I took what I took and it gets declassified,” he added.


https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/17/poli...s-special-counsel-declassification/index.html

 

A Trump lawyer tried to block other members of the former president's legal team from conducting additional searches following the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago, Trump's former lawyer claimed

547
Lloyd Lee
Sat, May 20, 2023 at 9:52 PM MDT



Timothy Parlatore, right, a former lawyer for Donald Trump, accused Boris Epshteyn, left, of obstructing the work of the former president's legal team.Earnie Grafton/Reuters and Andrew Harnik/AP

• 
  Timothy Parlatore represented Trump in the DOJ's investigations into the former president.
  
  
• He resigned from Trump's team of attorneys on Tuesday.
  
  
• In a CNN interview, Parlatore said there was conflict within Trump's own legal team.
  

A former lawyer who represented Donald Trump throughout the Justice Department's probe of the former president's handling of classified documents and efforts to interfere with the 2020 election results said that infighting within Trump's legal team was why he made his exit earlier this week.

Timothy Parlatore was one of Trump's lawyers throughout the DOJ probes, which are being overseen by special counsel Jack Smith, who will soon decide whether to charge Trump in the two cases. The attorney officially resigned on Tuesday with little explanation.

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In an interview with CNN's Paula Reid that aired Saturday, Parlatore said that the reason for his departure "had nothing to do with the case itself or the client."

"The real reason is because there are certain individuals that made defending the president much harder than it needed to be," Paraltore said.

Parlatore then singled out one of Trump's lawyers, Boris Epshteyn, who joined the former president's 2016 campaign as an aide and has remained in Trump's orbit ever since.

"In particular, there's one individual who works for him, Boris Ephsteyn, who had really done everything he could to try to block us — to prevent us from doing what we could to defend the president," he said.

In one case, Paraltore claimed Epshteyn "attempted to interfere" with the team's efforts to conduct more searches of Trump's properties following the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago for classified documents.

"It's difficult enough fighting against DOJ and, in this case, special counsel," Parlatore added. "But when you also have people within the tent that are also trying to undermine you, block you, and really make it so that I can't do what I know that I need to do as a lawyer, and when I am getting into fights like that, that's detracting from what is necessary to defend the client and ultimately not in the clients best interest, so I made the ultimate decision to withdraw."

Parlatore told CNN that Epshteyn was a "filter" between Trump and his legal team and at times prevented lawyers from providing Trump with information. He added that Epshteyn was not always "honest" with Trump and the rest of the attorneys.






In a statement, a Trump spokesperson confirmed that Parlatore "is no longer a member of the legal team."

"His statements regarding current members of the legal team are unfounded and categorically false," the spokesperson said.

Read the original article on Business Insider

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-lawyer-tried-block-other-035258839.html

 

Ex-White House Lawyer Says Evidence Is Stacked Against Trump In Documents Case

297
Kelby Vera
Sun, May 21, 2023 at 4:52 PM MDT


Former White House lawyer Ty Cobb seems certain Donald Trump will go down for his alleged mishandling of classified documents.

On Thursday, Cobb told CNN’s Erin Burnett he thinks the Department of Justice has a “tight case” against the former president, who is being investigated by special counsel Jack Smith over a laundry list of accusations.

The attorney, who worked for Trump from July 2017 and May 2018, said he was confident “The Apprentice” star “will go to jail” for obstruction for refusing DOJ requests to return classified documents after he left the White House.

Cobb told Burnett it wouldn’t take “much of a legal hurdle” for Smith to prove his case against the politician.


Attorney Ty Cobb (left) thinks his former employer Donald Trump (right) will go to jail for mishandling classified government documents.
Attorney Ty Cobb (left) thinks his former employer Donald Trump (right) will go to jail for mishandling classified government documents.

“All they really have to do is show that Trump moved these documents at various times when DOJ was either demanding them or actually present,” he said.

“That he filed falsely with the Justice Department, had his lawyers file falsely with the Justice Department, an affidavit to the effect that none existed ― which was shattered by the documents that they then discovered after the search ― and the many other misrepresentations that he and others have made on his behalf with regard to his possession of classified documents.”

Trump has staunchly denied any criminal wrongdoing in the matter. During a CNN town hall on May 10, he told moderator Kaitlin Collins he had “the absolute right” to take the documents under the Presidential Records Act.

In addition to the documents case, Smith is investigating the real estate mogul for his involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, riots and his efforts to overturn 2020 election results in Georgia.

New York Attorney General Letitia James also filed a fraud suit against Trump and his three eldest children in September.

In late March, he was indicted by a Manhattan District Court for a hush money scheme involving porn star Stormy Daniels and former lawyer Michael Cohen.

And earlier this month, he was found liable for sexual abuse in the case of columnist E. Jean Carroll.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/ex-white-house-lawyer-says-225253407.html

 

Prosecutors Cast Wider Net Into Trump’s Foreign Deals Than Previously Reported

The special counsel investigating Donald Trump’s potential mishandling of classified documents after he left the White House issued a subpoena to the Trump Organization seeking documents related to overseas real estate deals going back to when he was sworn into office, a wider net than previously reported, according to The New York Times. Sources close to the matter told the newspaper that the subpoena sought details on deals made since 2017 in seven countries: China, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman. It was not immediately clear what exactly the federal prosecutors were hunting for with the subpoena, when it was issued, or what material the Trump Organization had turned over, if any. The Times speculated that special counsel Jack Smith could be looking for links between Trump’s foreign deals and the classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago. Several of the records recovered from the Florida estate by federal agents last year were related to Middle Eastern nations, a person familiar with Smith’s work said.

Read it at The New York Times


https://www.thedailybeast.com/prose...ls-than-previously-reported?ref=home?ref=home

 

Fearing indictment is imminent in classified docs probe, Trump team requests meeting with DOJ

4.7k
KATHERINE FAULDERS and ALEXANDER MALLIN
Wed, May 24, 2023 at 6:05 AM MDT




Former President Donald Trump's legal team has formally requested a meeting with Attorney General Merrick Garland, amid fears from his attorneys that the coming weeks could bring a possible indictment of Trump regarding his alleged efforts to retain materials after leaving office and to obstruct the government's attempts to retrieve them.

The letter, though thin on details, was sent so Trump's lawyers could present arguments that Trump should not be charged in the investigation related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.

The letter asks Garland for a meeting at his earliest convenience to discuss what the attorneys describe as the "ongoing injustice that is being perpetrated" by special counsel Jack Smith and says that no president has been "baselessly investigated" in such an "unlawful fashion."

The one-page letter was signed by Trump lawyers John Rowley and James Trusty, and does not outline any specific allegations of wrongdoing by Smith and his team.

The request does not specifically detail what Trump's legal team wants to discuss with the attorney general. Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing associated with his handling of materials bearing classification markings.

It's not clear whether Trump's attorneys are acting on any specific knowledge of Smith's investigation.

Trump posted the letter on his Truth Social account Tuesday night.


Trump Letter 05/23/23 by ABC News Politics

A spokesperson for Garland and a spokesperson for the special counsel's office both declined to comment to ABC News.

The letter from Trump's attorneys follows more than a year of negotiations between Trump's team and the government, which resulted in a breakdown of trust that led to the government's May 2022 subpoena for documents and its subsequent search of Mar-a-Lago last August. Since then, as ABC News has previously reported, the DOJ and Trump's lawyers have continued to battle over compliance with grand jury subpoenas.

National Archives officials initially asked the Justice Department in early 2022 to investigate Trump's handling of White House records after the National Archives in January retrieved 15 boxes of records from Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida that had been improperly taken from the White House in violation of the Presidential Records Act.

The DOJ probe hit a critical point on August 8, 2022, when Mar-a-Lago was searched by FBI agents. Federal investigators seized more than 100 documents with classified markings during the search, according to an unsealed detailed inventory list. From Trump's office alone, there were 43 empty folders seized with classified banners.

The property inventory list also showed agents gathered more than 11,000 documents or photographs without classification markings, all of which were described as property of the U.S. government.

Since the August search, Trump and his legal team have found additional classified documents and have received additional subpoenas for information that the government believes could still be in Trump's possession.


PHOTO: Former President Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC 2023, March 4, 2023, at National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Md. (Alex Brandon/AP, FILE)
As ABC News first reported in March, prosecutors in the special counsel's office have presented compelling preliminary evidence that Trump knowingly and deliberately misled his own attorneys about his retention of classified material after leaving office, according to sources who described the contents of a sealed filing from a top federal judge.

In a sealed filing from March, Judge Beryl Howell ordered Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran to comply with a grand jury subpoena for testimony over which he had previously asserted attorney-client privilege. Sources said Howell ordered Corcoran to hand over a number of records tied to what she described as Trump's alleged "criminal scheme," echoing prosecutors. Those records included handwritten notes, invoices, and transcriptions of personal audio recordings.

The meeting request from Trump's attorneys comes as infighting within Trump's legal team has spilled into the public eye.

Over the weekend, former Trump lawyer Tim Parlatore -- who left Trump's legal team last week -- publicly blasted a current lawyer for Trump, alleging that Boris Epshteyn attempted to interfere with additional searches for classified material at Trump's properties.

"In my opinion, he was not very honest with us or with the client on certain things. There were certain things like the searches that he had attempted to interfere with," Parlatore said during an appearance on CNN on Saturday. Parlatore added that Epshteyn, who has served as somewhat of a liaison between the lawyers, made defending Trump more difficult.

A Trump campaign spokesperson said in a statement that Parlatore's assertions were "categorically false."


https://www.yahoo.com/gma/fearing-indictment-imminent-classified-docs-013300969.html

 

Former Trump lawyer may be 'waving a red flag' that he wants to cooperate with DOJ: legal expert

Tom Boggioni
May 22, 2023, 8:17 AM ET



Donald Trump (Photo by Saul Loeb for AFP)


During an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance reacted to former Donald Trump lawyer Timothy Parlatore coming clean about why he recently quit and says there appears to be a "turf war" among members of the former president's legal team that does not bode well for their client.

Over the weekend, Paraltore admitted that he left over disagreements and legal infighting and pointed the finger at longtime Trump associate Boris Epshteyn for slapping aside legal strategies.

As the New York Times reported, "Parlatore described how Mr. Epshteyn had hindered him and other lawyers from getting information to Mr. Trump, leaving the former president’s legal team at a disadvantage in dealing with the Justice Department, which is scrutinizing Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents after leaving office and his efforts to remain in office after losing the 2020 election."

Asked what is going on by "Morning Joe" regular Johnathan Lemire, Vance suggested a plea deal may be in the works.

RELATED: MSNBC's Mika 'shocked by the stupidity' of Trump's handling of Mar-a-Lago documents

"It's almost as though there's a turf war going on here among the lawyers," she began. "You know, often, when you see a lawyer leave a legal team that might signify that there's a plea deal in the works or that there's some legal reason behind the change. Here, it looks like a pure turf battle. But when Paraltore goes out and reveals this sort of information, it's almost as though he's pointing a finger at Boris Epshteyn and including him in the group of people involved in obstructing justice in this situation."

"We don't usually see lawyers come out and make statements like this after they leave a legal team," she later added. "You know, it's CYA, it's maybe waving a red flag at the Justice Department and saying he would like to come back and testify in a grand jury. I think that would make it the third time for him."

"You know, Trump's lawyers don't seem to believe that when people say 'everything Trump touches dies,' that it includes the lawyers," she quipped. "But clearly, it does. Because they've put themselves at risk in a number of different ways."

"And so, we see lawyers leave and have to worry about whether they're next," she elaborated. "I don't think I've ever seen a situation where so many lawyers, Boris Epshteyn, John Eastman, are all invoked as part of possible criminal activity."

Watch the video below or at this link.




https://www.rawstory.com/trump-parlatore/

 

Many legal experts and ex federal prosecutors called this a stupid and desperate move. They point out its not uncommon at all in high profiled cases for defense attorneys to request a meeting with prosecutors when an indictment is imminent. And they actually welcome that because they don't want to make a mistake and if the defendant has evidence to prove their innocence they want to see it. Or even listen to extenuating circumstances that might have a bearing on the case.

But in Trump's cases the prosecutor is Special Counsel Jack Smith who AG Merrick Garland appointed and said would have independence to investigate the documents case and J6 and decide what if any charges should be brought. So they do not believe Garland will even meet with Trump's lawyers. And add the most likely reason for the last minute desperate demand for a meeting with Garland is they already met with Jack Smith and didn't like his answer.



Trump lawyers warn him to prepare for federal indictment: report

Brad Reed
May 25, 2023, 10:59 AM ET



Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images


Former President Donald Trump has already been indicted on felony charges in the state of New York, and now his lawyers are reportedly preparing him to get hit with federal charges as well.

Sources tell Rolling Stone that Trump's allies are telling him that he appears very likely to be indicted by special counsel Jack Smith's office in the Mar-a-Lago documents case where he stashed top-secret government documents at his private resort and refused to return them even after receiving a subpoena.

“Looks like they’re going for it,” one source tells the publication. “People close to the [former] president have discussed with him what we think is going to happen soon, and how he and everyone else needs to be ready for it… It would be crazy not to.”

Tom Fitton, a Trump ally and president of the right-wing Judicial Watch group, similarly told Rolling Stone that he "would just presume indictments in all the jurisdictions."

IN OTHER NEWS: Winnie the Pooh book teaches Texas kids how to survive school shootings: report

The publications sources also say that Trump has reacted bitterly to the looming potential indictment, and has angrily questioned why President Joe Biden isn't also being indicted after officials found classified documents stashed at several of his properties.

Of course, as the report points out, Trump faces significant danger not for merely possessing the documents but for potentially obstructing the government's attempts to retrieve them from his possession.



https://www.rawstory.com/trump-indictment-jack-smith/

 

Trump’s employees conducted ‘dress rehearsal’ for concealing sensitive documents: report

Gideon Rubin
May 25, 2023, 2:32 PM ET



MSNBC


The day before FBI agents came to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property to retrieve classified documents, prosecutors believe two of the former president’s employees moved boxes containing papers in a development that’s being viewed as suspicious by investigators, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

Additionally, The Post reports that Trump’s aides conducted a “dress rehearsal” for moving sensitive documents before his office received the May 2022 subpoena.

Prosecutors have also obtained evidence suggesting Trump kept classified documents in his office in a place where they were visible and sometimes showed them to others.

"Taken together," The Post reports, "the new details of the classified-documents investigation suggest a greater breadth and specificity to the instances of possible obstruction found by the FBI and Justice Department than has been previously reported.

"It also broadens the timeline of possible obstruction episodes that investigators are examining — a period stretching from events at Mar-a-Lago before the subpoena to the period after the FBI raid there on Aug. 8."

Read the full article here.



https://www.rawstory.com/classified-documents/

 

I believe this because people who actually work for a living are invisible to the rich and powerful and assume they don't have a brain of their own.

Mar-a-Lago maintenance worker aided prosecutors in Trump probe: report

Gideon Rubin
May 25, 2023, 9:07 PM ET



U.S. President-elect Donald Trump talks to members of the media after a meeting meeting with Pentagon officials at Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., December 21, 2016. (REUTERS/Carlos Barria)


A Mar-a-Lago maintenance worker provided prosecutors key evidence in Justice Department’s investigation of Donald Trump over the former president’s handling of classified documents, The New York Times reports.

The maintenance worker told authorities that they witnessed an aide moving boxes into a storage room the day before a Trump lawyer met with FBI agents and a prosecutor who visited the former president’s Florida home to retrieve classified documents.

The worker had offered to help the aide move the boxes, according to the report, but the worker was not aware of what was in the boxes.

The aide is identified as Walt Nauta, who served as Trump’s valet in the White House.

The revelation follows reporting from The Washington Post earlier in the day that two of the former president’s employees moved boxes containing papers in a development that’s being viewed as suspicious by investigators.

Additionally, The Post reported that Trump’s aides conducted a “dress rehearsal” for moving sensitive documents before his office received the May 2022 subpoena.

The Times’ Alan Feuer and Maggie Haberman write that “The worker’s account is potentially significant to prosecutors as they piece together details of how Mr. Trump handled sensitive documents he took with him from the White House upon leaving office and whether he obstructed efforts by the Justice Department and the National Archives to retrieve them.”

“Mr. Trump was found to have been keeping some of the documents in the storage room where Mr. Nauta and the maintenance worker were moving boxes on the day before the Justice Department’s top counterintelligence official, Jay Bratt, traveled to Mar-a-Lago last June to seek the return of any government materials being held by the former president.”

Weeks earlier the Justice Department issued a subpoena demanding the return of the documents.

Prosecutors are investigating whether the documents were moved in an effort to conceal them.

IN OTHER NEWS: 'Increasingly solid every day': Ex-Trump White House lawyer hails Jack Smith's case against Trump

“Part of their interest is in trying to determine whether documents were moved before Mr. Corcoran went through the boxes himself ahead of a meeting with Justice Department officials looking to retrieve them,” Feuer and Haberman write.

“Prosecutors have been asking witnesses about the roles of Mr. Nauta and the maintenance worker, whose name has not been publicly disclosed, in moving documents around that time.”

Read the full article here.



https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-mar-a-lago-2660618654/

 

BUT HUNTER BIDEN BUT HUNTER BIDEN DON'T LOOK OVER HERE LOOK OVER THERE ITS HUNTER BIDEN!!!!!

And this makes a very crucial point. Robert Mueller was not allowed to look into Trump's finances because if he did Trump's said he was going to fire everybody. But Traitor Trump is no longer president so now where he and his family get their money is fair game.

Next stop for Jack Smith is Trump's financial ties to the Saudis: columnist

Tom Boggioni
May 26, 2023, 11:43 AM ET



Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead.


A report from the New York Times that investigators working for special counsel Jack Smith have issued a subpoena demanding information from the Trump Organization regarding its international business dealings led Salon columnist Heather Digby Parton to suggest Smith and his people should place their emphasis on financial ties to the ruling family in Saudi Arabia.

According to the Times report, "The subpoena — drafted by the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith — sought details on the Trump Organization’s real estate licensing and development dealings in seven countries: China, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, according to the people familiar with the matter.

The subpoena sought the records for deals reached since 2017, when Mr. Trump was sworn in as president."

Parton wrote an investigation is definitely warranted into his boosting of the Saudi-backed LIV golf tour, which has converted the former president into a vocal cheerleader for the Saudis despite their execrable human rights record.

"At least someone is finally taking a look at what exactly was going on while Trump was running his business out of the Oval Office." Parton wrote, adding that Trump's golf courses have been hurting since the PGA abandoned them due to his many controversies, making the former president ripe for the plucking.

Although there is no direct appearance of deals during Trump's brief four years in office, there is likely much to look at since he lost his 2020 re-election, with an even greater concern about his third presidential bid.

"If Trump were just retiring to his golf resorts and taking advantage of all the contacts he made while president, it might be reasonable just to let it go in the interest of never having to think about him again," the Salon piece read.

"But he's the clear frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination and he's openly helping the Saudi regime 'sportswash' its human rights record while taking unknown millions from it," the Salon columnist wrote before adding, "Let's hope that unlike Robert Mueller, who refused to exceed his mandate and look at Trump's finances, Jack Smith sees this for the blatant corruption it is."

You can read the Salon article here.



https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-saudis/

 

Proof that Trump shared Mar-a-Lago docs 'changes the game' for Jack Smith indictment: Guardian reporter

Tom Boggioni
May 28, 2023, 9:51 AM ET



Jack Smith, Donald Trump (Smith photo by Robin Van Lonkhuijsen for AFP/ Trump by Saul Loeb for AFP)


Appearing on MSNBC's "The Katie Phang Show," Guardian reporter Hugo Lowell claimed Donald Trump might have avoided being hit with violations of the Espionage Act if it had not been reported that he shared highly sensitive government documents with friends at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

According to Lowell, who has been reporting that the documents may have been hidden from Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran, a new report that Trump left documents laying about and might have shown them to others makes it more likely he'll face more severe charges if that is true.

"The Washington Post reported this week about how prosecutors seem to have evidence that Trump was showing highly sensitive documents to other people," Lowell began. "That's really interesting because that's the kind of aggravating move that a prosecutor looks for when they're trying to prosecute Section 93e of Title 18 which is the Espionage Act."

"There's two parts," he continued. "The first part is willful retention. Willful retention alone is very rarely charged, and I think in the case with the former president, with prosecutors, that was the only thing they might consider not charging."

"But if they have evidence that Trump was showing people and they have the second part of that clause, which is willful transmission and dissemination, that changes the game entirely," he added. "That is the sort of thing that they would charge. That is really concrete evidence that Trump has a lot of problems."

Watch below or at the link:





https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-espionage-2660715138/

 

Paranoia strikes deep. Into your life, it will creep · It starts when you're always afraid. Step out of line, the man come and take you away.




Trump’s Lawyers Start to Wonder If One Could Be a Snitch

229
Jose Pagliery
Tue, May 30, 2023 at 1:58 AM MDT



Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty Images
With three anticipated indictments, two ongoing court cases, and an ever-expanding cadre of lawyers, former President Donald Trump is at a critical juncture—and yet his legal advisers are starting to turn on each other.

According to five sources with direct knowledge of the situation, clashing personalities and the increasing outside threat of law enforcement has sown deep divisions that have only worsened in recent months. The internal bickering has already sparked one departure in recent weeks—and that could be just the beginning.

As Trump’s legal troubles keep growing—with criminal and civil investigations in New York City, Washington, and Atlanta—so too does the unwieldy band of attorneys who simply can’t get along.


The cast of characters includes an accused meddler who has Trump’s ear, a young attorney who lawyers on the team suggested is only there because the former president likes the way she looks, and a celebrity lawyer who’s increasingly viewed with disdain. Worst of all, now that federal investigators have turned the interrogation spotlight on some of Trump’s lawyers themselves, defense attorneys on the team seem to be questioning whether their colleagues may actually turn into snitches.

“There’s a lot of lawyers and a lot of jealousy,” said one person on Trump’s legal team, explaining that the sheer number of lawyers protecting a single man accused of so many crimes is without parallel.

Part of the concern over lawyers turning on each other is due to the fact that the Department of Justice already has one Trump attorney’s professional notes, which could position him as a future witness against his own client, and the DOJ has another lawyer who said too much in an unrelated case and has positioned herself as yet another potential witness against her client.

But much of the anger from Trump’s lawyers is directed at the former president’s right-hand man, Boris Epshteyn, who’s accused of running interference on certain legal advice from more experienced courtroom gladiators.

Epshteyn, who’s a lawyer himself, has risen through the ranks in Trumpworld over the years, first as an adviser for Trump’s 2016 campaign, then as a more senior adviser for 2020, and now part of Trump’s innermost circle for 2024.

Ephsteyn seems to have the former president’s supreme confidence, with what’s described as a final say on all matters related to public relations and legal issues. But there’s snickering in the shadows. Several sources ridiculed the way Ephsteyn refers to himself as “in-house counsel”—normally a term for a company’s corporate attorney—noting how it echoes the way John Gotti’s mafia lawyer used to describe his services for the infamous Gambino crime family.

Epshteyn’s meddling has particularly affected the lawyers working to defend Trump from Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith and his investigation into whether the former president broke the law when he took top secret documents on his way out of the White House in January 2021 and hoarded them at Mar-a-Lago.

“Boris pissed off all the Florida lawyers. People are dropping like flies. Everybody hates him. He’s a toxic loser. He’s a complete psycho,” said a second person, who could barely contain their anger while discussing the matter. “He’s got daddy issues, and Trump is his daddy.”

The infighting came to a head recently, sparking the departure earlier this month of Tim Parlatore, one of the lawyers in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case.

Parlatore’s sudden departure from Trump’s legal team came after a never-reported meeting last month at Mar-a-Lago, where several lawyers threatened to leave. According to two sources who described it as “an intervention,” the lawyers handling the case put forward an ultimatum: either Epshteyn goes or they do.

Four sources described how Epshteyn would at times stand guard between Trump and his own defense lawyers, demanding that all communication flow through him. One of these sources noted that Parlatore’s first ever one-on-one meeting with his own client was when the defense lawyer recently submitted his resignation.


A fifth person who regularly works on legal matters countered the description of Epshteyn as an obstructionist, noting that Trump’s lawyers still have a direct channel to the former president when necessary. But this person acknowledged that Epshteyn plays a pivotal role in screening major issues that fly Trump’s way, much like a public official’s highly defensive chief of staff.

“He does help arrange things. He tries to coordinate. But everybody has Trump’s phone number, and he picks up the phone. And he calls you directly when he feels like it,” this person said.

“Some people don’t like Boris, but most of us are used to having a client to ourselves,” this person continued. “We don’t have other people involved. When there’s all these lawyers, there’s going to be conflict. Different people, different ideas. People feel like Boris is the one who’s deciding things, but it’s not Boris making decisions. I guarantee you that’s Trump not wanting something.”

This source suggested that, at this stage—with three different criminal investigations closing in and multiple trials scheduled to interrupt the election season—it’s inevitable that high-powered lawyers fully capable of representing someone like a former American president would chide at being questioned by someone like Epshteyn. Another person described him as “a really super-smart guy” who still manages to be “obnoxious, vociferous, and bombastic” because “he has a law license.”

“It doesn’t mean he’s really a lawyer,” this person said.

The closest anyone on the team has come to publicly hinting at in-fighting was Parlatore in a CNN appearance last week, in which he blamed Epshteyn for doing “everything he could to try to block us, to prevent us from doing what we could to defend the president.”

But as another Trump lawyer, Alina Habba, said days later on that same TV news network: “You have type A personalities. We’re all lawyers, and not everybody’s always going to get along.”

Epshteyn declined to comment on the record, but a Trump 2024 campaign spokesman moved to create distance between the remaining lawyers and the departing counsel.

“Mr. Parlatore is no longer a member of the legal team. His statements regarding current members of the legal team are unfounded and categorically false,” Steven Cheung told The Daily Beast.

Then there’s the 33-year-old Lindsey Halligan, a relatively inexperienced lawyer who suddenly appeared in Trump’s orbit sometime last summer as a vocal advocate on the right-wing Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast. She was at Mar-a-Lago during the FBI’s search there in August, quickly became involved in Trump’s bumbling lawsuit in October against CNN for comparing Trump to Hitler, and has since been generally involved in his defense against the feds.

Fellow attorneys advising Trump have seriously questioned why she’s on the team, given that the most notable case she worked on since graduating from law school in 2013 appears to have been second-chair to a more senior lawyer defending an insurance company at a two-day trial against three Miami homeowners with damaged roofs. Even in that case, a judge wouldn’t award her attorney’s fees because he ruled that her team screwed up and didn’t act “in good faith.”


“It waters down the honor to represent a president. It really does, when you think about it,” one of her colleagues told The Daily Beast.

Two current members of Trump’s defense speculated that Trump only keeps Halligan around because he likes to be surrounded by attractive people.

Halligan did not respond to multiple requests for comment. But another colleague came to her defense.

“With a new person coming in, people are looking to undercut her. She's a young, attractive woman, and people can be pretty sexist,” this person said, noting that such speculation about her hiring was “an easy way to undercut a woman attorney.”

Trump’s mounting legal problems have only added to the general anxiety afflicting his attorneys.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, which indicted Trump in March for faking business records, is about to dump thousands of documents of evidence on defense lawyers Todd Blanche, Susan Necheles, and Joe Tacopina—who aren’t allowed to freely share those documents with the former president. They may even have to fight Trump to prevent him from stupidly posting sensitive details on social media.

The DA’s prosecutors are already trying to fracture Trump’s legal team by attempting to disqualify Tacopina and make him seem like a weak link, because he has a tenuous connection to a key witness in the case, the porn star Stormy Daniels whose hush money payment Trump tried to hide while running for president back in 2016.

Meanwhile, defense attorneys Alina Habba and Christopher Kise are gearing up for a civil trial in October against the New York Attorney General, who seeks to bleed the Trump Organization dry and destroy Trump’s ability to do conduct business in the financial capital of the world by holding him personally liable for bank and insurance fraud.

In Georgia, the defense lawyers Drew Findling, Melissa Goldberg, and Jennifer L. Little are preparing for the Fulton County District Attorney to indict Trump in July or August over the way he intimidated the state’s top elections official in 2021 while trying to overturn his loss there—a recorded phone call where he was advised by yet other lawyers he trusted.

And an entirely different team of lawyers split up between the nation’s capital and his oceanside Florida estate—former federal prosecutors M. Evan Corcoran, John P. Rowley, and Jim Trusty up north and Halligan down south—are gearing up for two different fights with the Department of Justice.

Meanwhile, there’s growing resentment against Habba and Tacopina among the some lawyers over the way they handled Trump’s recent rape trial against the journalist E. Jean Carroll. The former president didn’t bother showing up to testify, his attorneys presented no case, and the jury swiftly concluded he committed sexual abuse. One source commended the duo for putting up a fight while dealing with a no-bullshit federal judge and a client who wouldn’t stop digging himself into a hole. But others ripped Habba for failing to get better rulings from the federal judge before the trial and tore into Tacopina over his brutish performance in court.



“She quickly demonstrated herself to have a total lack of understanding, and he totally screwed that case up. That was a winnable case if he presented a defense,” one source said.

While Trump’s sprawling legal battalion occasionally comes together for massive meetings about the overall pitiful state of affairs, each case team operates in its own lane—raising suspicions that some teams are completely under-equipped and could cause others to trip up. Trump has so many simultaneous criminal investigations that they have to coordinate to not double book potential appearances in court—or trials. And they all have to bear in mind that he’s actively campaigning for president of the United States.

But what’s really driving the deepest distrust is the way Smith’s investigators have started turning up the heat on Trump’s own lawyers, driving wedges between the counselors and their client.

It happened when a federal judge, citing the existence of a possible crime, unilaterally and speedily handed prosecutors Corcoran’s professional notes—an odd and highly questionable move involving what are normally highly guarded secrets.

And it happened when those prosecutors questioned Habba, who put herself in an impossible situation when she declared in the New York AG’s case that she thoroughly searched every nook and cranny at Mar-a-Lago for documents relevant in that business fraud case—only to have the FBI later find classified documents in those desk drawers and cabinets months later.

“It's either perjury or incompetence,” said one insider.

Several attorneys on Trump’s team consider these two events as potential liabilities, given that the feds could pressure them to become witnesses against their client.

The DOJ case is getting so hot, some lawyers have begun to see it as radioactive to their careers. One lawyer on Trump’s team emphatically told The Daily Beast, “I have nothing to do with that. I have a law license to protect.” Another stressed they might slam the eject button before it gets much worse.

“It’s crazy in there. It really is. I’ve heard there’s a mess coming,” this person said.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-lawyers-start-wonder-one-075825461.html

 

Tape recording shows Trump acknowledging he kept classified document on Iran -CNN

FILE PHOTO: Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump attends a campaign event in Manchester,
4.2k
Wed, May 31, 2023 at 2:30 PM MDT




WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal prosecutors have a 2021 audio recording of former President Donald Trump acknowledging he kept a classified Pentagon document about a possible attack on Iran after leaving the White House, CNN reported on Wednesday.

CNN did not listen to the recording but cited unidentified multiple sources describing it. Reuters was not able to confirm the report.

The recording shows Trump, who is seeking the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, understood he retained classified material after he left the White House in 2021, according to the cable television network.

Trump’s remarks indicated he would like to share the information but was aware of the limitations on his ability to declassify documents after leaving office, two sources told CNN.


Trump has denied wrongdoing. A Trump representative would not comment on the report of the recording or on the specific remarks attributed to Trump and called the investigation politically motivated.

"Leaks from radical partisans behind this political persecution are designed to inflame tensions and continue the media’s harassment of President Trump and his supporters," Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said on Wednesday.

Peter Carr, the spokesperson for Special Counsel Jack Smith's office at the Justice Department, declined to comment.

The Justice Department is investigating whether Trump broke the law by retaining U.S. government records, some marked as top secret, after leaving office in January 2021.

In August, the department disclosed that it was investigating Trump for removing White House records because it believed he illegally held documents including some involving intelligence-gathering and clandestine human sources - among America's most closely held secrets.

Smith's probe includes whether Trump or his associates obstructed the Justice Department's probe into his retention of thousands of government records, about 300 of which were marked classified.

The special counsel is also investigating efforts to overturn Trump's 2020 election loss that culminated in the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-captured-tape-acknowledging-kept-203042383.html

 

Now you talk about a bunch of incompetents in way over their heads. They don't know who Hugo Lowell of The Guardian is? They didn't recognize him? Lowell is only the best, most accurate, and determined Trump reporter there is on the Trump documents case. And they are sitting there talking in front of him? Its almost like they may have done it on purpose.

Trump's loose-lipped lawyers overheard spilling secrets in a restaurant: report

Travis Gettys
June 1, 2023, 10:29 AM ET



NEWThe legal team of former US President Donald Trump, led by M. Evan Corcoran (C), along with Lindsey Halligan (L), James Trusty (Center-R), and Christ Kise (R) arrive at the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse. on September 20, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Alex Kent/Getty Images)


The internal frustrations within Donald Trump's legal team started almost immediately after the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago last year, and they spilled into public view not long afterward.

Federal investigators seized 101 classified materials from the former president's private residence in August, and his four-person legal team at the time -- Jim Trusty, Evan Corcoran, Chris Kise and Lindsey Halligan -- worked together to persuade U.S. district court judge Aileen Cannon to grant a special master, but cracks soon emerged, reported The Guardian.

"But Trusty, who played a leading role in the special master litigation, was already frustrated with how things were going," reported Hugo Lowell for the newspaper. "Trusty’s private frame of mind emerged over dinner with Halligan and Corcoran at the five-star Breakers hotel in West Palm Beach, Florida, hours after the special master court hearing.

"The conversation was overheard by this Guardian reporter who happened to be sitting at the table next to them."

Trusty was frustrated that Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn was making the attorneys run legal decisions through him, even though he didn't consider him to be a trial lawyer, and Trusty didn't like that Epshteyn seemed to focus more on Trump's public-relations problems than legal issues.

Lowell then overheard the attorney rip Epshteyn for trying to "troubleshoot" legal problems instead of letting him candidly brief his own client himself, which he compared to "'Game of Thrones' nonsense," and Trusty and Parlatore agreed several weeks later, after the Justice Department told them they believed Trump still had classified documents, that Epshteyn improperly inserted himself into their work.

"The pair chafed that when they spoke to Trump on the phone, Epshteyn was typically also on the line," Lowell reported. "At other times, they sniped that Epshteyn would give overly rosy outlooks to Trump and, in March, traveled to Mar-a-Lago to seek Trump’s permission to exclude him from future deliberations."

https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trumps-lawyers/

 

'That's what that suggests': Ex-prosecutor theorizes that Trump wanted Mar-a-Lago surveillance video tampered with

Sarah K. Burris
May 31, 2023, 2:25 PM ET



Composite image, White House picture of President Donald Trump and Mar-a-Lago


After a bombshell report that a Donald Trump staffer questioned a Mar-a-Lago IT worker about the functioning of security cameras at the club – specifically how long footage stayed available – former federal prosecutor Shan Wu theorized that the only reason they would care is if they were worried about something being seen.

Speaking to CNN's John King on Wednesday, Wu first addressed recent New York Times reports that special counsel Jack Smith is interviewing Trump's former cyber-security chief Chris Krebs. He was the aide that called the 2020 election the safest in history as the former president mounted a conspiracy campaign that the election had been stolen from him. Krebs was subsequently fired via tweet.

Wu said that the reasons Smith, who is investigating classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago and Trump's part in attempting to overturn the 2020 election, might be looking at Krebs, included trying to establish Trump's state of mind, and looking for a link to some of the financial aspects of Jan. 6.

"Money and power always entwine," Wu said. "Perhaps the next best thing is to make money off the fraud that you're pushing out there. So, I think they are looking at both of those. And certainly, Krebs could be — the firing offense — would be valuable not only to the efforts by Trump to stay in power but also to the continued fundraising that we know is being looked at carefully too."

But it was the Mar-a-Lago piece of the story that could be the most damaging. The Washington Post reported Tuesday on the incident with the security cameras at the former president's country club.

"The employee allegedly had a conversation with an IT worker at the site about how the security cameras worked and how long images remained stored in the system," the Post reported, citing a person familiar with the investigation.

Reports earlier this month indicated Smith might be looking for evidence that Trump tampered with the security cameras, CNN reported.

"You're not really concerned about retention policies unless where there's documents, video or audio you want to go away," Wu explained. "That's what that suggests. Why would you ask about that if you're not worried about the surveillance being there?"

The calendar the Post cited showed the conversation was in mid-July 2022, more than a month after the FBI visited Mar-a-Lago to collect some documents on June 2. It was a few weeks later, on Aug. 8, 2022, that the FBI executed a search warrant.

A report from the week following the 2022 search said the feds obtained surveillance videos that showed aides moving boxes around in the days before the search.

See the full conversation with Wu below or at the link here.

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-documents-surveillance-camera-footage/

 

Prosecutors Scrutinize Handling of Security Footage by Trump Aides in Documents Case

1.6k
Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman and Ben Protess
Thu, June 1, 2023 at 5:24 AM MDT



Mar-a-Lago, the residence of former President Donald Trump in Palm Beach, Fla., on April 4, 2023. (Hilary Swift/The New York Times)

For the past six months, prosecutors working for special counsel Jack Smith have sought to determine whether former President Donald Trump obstructed the government’s efforts to retrieve a trove of classified documents he took from the White House.

More recently, investigators also appear to be pursuing a related question: whether Trump and some of his aides sought to interfere with the government’s attempt to obtain security camera footage from Mar-a-Lago that could shed light on how those documents were stored and who had access to them.

The search for answers on this second issue has taken investigators deep into the bowels of Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club and residence in Florida, as they pose questions to an expanding cast of low-level workers at the compound, according to people familiar with the matter. Some of the workers played a role in either securing boxes of material in a storage room at Mar-a-Lago or maintaining video footage from a security camera that was mounted outside the room.


Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times

Two weeks ago, the latest of these employees, an information technology worker named Yuscil Taveras, appeared before a grand jury in Washington, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Taveras was asked questions about his dealings with two other Trump employees: Walt Nauta, a longtime aide to Trump who served as one of his valets in the White House, and Carlos Deoliveira, described by one person familiar with the events as the head of maintenance at Mar-a-Lago.

Phone records show that Deoliveira called Taveras last summer, and prosecutors wanted to know why. The call caught the government’s attention because it was placed shortly after prosecutors issued a subpoena to Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, demanding the footage from the surveillance camera near the storage room.

The call also occurred just weeks after Deoliveira helped Nauta move boxes of documents into the storage room — the same room that Deoliveira at one point fitted with a lock. The movement of the boxes into the room took place at another key moment: on the day before prosecutors descended on Mar-a-Lago for a meeting with Trump’s lawyers intended to get him to comply with a demand to return all classified documents.

The Trump Organization ultimately turned over the surveillance tapes, but Smith’s prosecutors appear to be scrutinizing whether someone in Trump’s orbit tried to limit the amount of footage produced to the government.

They asked Taveras an open-ended question about if anyone had queried him about whether footage from the surveillance system could be deleted.

It remains unclear what investigators learned from questioning Taveras in front of the grand jury and whether they were able to make any headway in their efforts to determine if steps had been taken to interfere with the handing over of the surveillance tapes.

But the focus on the tapes is the latest effort by Smith to determine whether Trump or his aides engaged in any sort of obstructive behavior. Prosecutors are examining whether the former president has in effect been playing games with government officials in different agencies for more than a year — including the Justice Department, which issued a subpoena for all classified documents in Trump’s possession last May, and the National Archives, which sought to retrieve reams of presidential records from Trump that he held onto after leaving office, some of which included classified material.

There is no indication that Taveras is a subject of Smith’s investigation. His lawyer, Stanley Woodward Jr., declined to comment.

Deoliveira’s lawyer, John Irving, did not respond to a message seeking comment.

All three men — Taveras, Deoliveira and Nauta — have been questioned extensively by prosecutors over their roles in handling the boxes and the tapes. Trump’s aides maintain that nothing nefarious took place, and that activities that prosecutors are treating with suspicion were simply part of efforts to comply with the subpoenas or were routine conversations that happened without the participants knowing in some cases about the existence of the subpoenas issued by the Justice Department for the security footage and for the classified documents in Trump’s possession.

Nonetheless, one person briefed on the events said the interactions concerning the security tapes were enough to arouse suspicion among Smith’s investigators. Moreover, people briefed on witness interviews say, it has become clear that Smith views a number of people connected to Trump with skepticism.

Both Irving and the lawyer representing Nauta and Taveras, Woodward, are being paid by Trump’s political action committee, Save America, which itself has been under scrutiny by Smith’s team. Prosecutors are looking into whether the group raised money from donors by claiming that it would be earmarked for legal challenges to the 2020 election, but that Trump’s aides knew he had lost.

The Washington Post reported Tuesday about a conversation between an unnamed IT worker and an unnamed maintenance worker at Mar-a-Lago.

Taveras’ grand jury appearance was not the first time that Smith’s team has focused on the question of how the security tapes at Mar-a-Lago were handled. Prosecutors have also issued subpoenas to Matthew Calamari Sr. and his son, Matthew Calamari Jr., who have long overseen security issues for the Trump Organization.

The prosecutors have sent separate subpoenas to the company seeking surveillance footage from Mar-a-Lago, people with knowledge of the matter said. The first such subpoena was issued last June, and since then, prosecutors have sent several more subpoenas for a wider array of footage, one person with knowledge of the matter said.

The prosecutors appear to have sought the footage in order to get a clearer picture of the movement of the boxes of documents at Mar-a-Lago. But there were gaps in the footage, the person said, and the prosecutors have also been examining whether someone intentionally stopped the tape or if technological issues caused the gap.

The prosecutors have also subpoenaed a software company that handles all of the surveillance footage for the Trump Organization, including at Mar-a-Lago, The New York Times previously reported.

The attempts by Smith’s team to get to the bottom of what was happening with the boxes and the tapes reflect a fundamental challenge that prosecutors have faced since the start of the documents investigation: Trump’s post-presidential world at Mar-a-Lago is as much of a mishmash of loyalists and other officials as his chaotic White House was, and those who surround him most at his private club are employees with whom he has developed direct personal relationships over years.

Nauta was a military aide serving as a valet in the Trump White House, requiring a level of intimate proximity to the president that few staff members develop. After the Trump administration ended, Nauta retired from the military and went to work for Trump directly. And Deoliveira once parked cars at the club, a Trump aide said.

Before working on the information systems at Mar-a-Lago, Taveras managed them at the Trump International Hotel and Tower and at the Trump SoHo Hotel, according to his LinkedIn page.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/prosecutors-scrutinize-handling-security-footage-112440999.html

 

Ever since Stormy Daniels and even before lawyers knew they could not trust Trump as a client. For one you might not even get paid. But for another you might be one of those disbarred or in prison because all Trump does is lie and will gladly throw you under the bus if those lies get exposed. So you can bet they are going to make tape recordings and lots of notes.

Just like Corcoran did. Thinking he was safe to do it because of attorney/client privilege. But then Corcoran had bi idea what Special Counsel Jack Smith already had on Trump. And you end up in court looking at a judge that is saying there is pretty clear evidence of crimes/fraud here. So do you want to hand over what you've got or risk getting disbarred and/or end up in prison? And those are the kinds of questions that can cut a lot of ties.


Trump insiders 'unnerved' and angry as the DOJ pores over lawyer's notes about Mar-a-Lago documents: NYT

Tom Boggioni
June 3, 2023, 7:50 AM ET



Donald Trump (Photo by Nicholas Kamm for AFP)


Donald Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran's habit of dictating his notes into his phone has aides to the former president furious and "unnerved" now that the Department of Justice has the phone and has transcribed his musings, reports the New York Times.

On Saturday the Times reported that while Corcoran was working with the former president while searching for sensitive documents held at Mar-a-Lago, he used his phone to detail the conversations and the advice he was giving the president -- and what he said could be central to an indictment of the former president.

As the report notes, in March Federal Judge Beryl A. Howell "pierced the privilege that would have normally protected Mr. Corcoran’s musings about his interactions with Mr. Trump. Those protections were set aside under what is known as the crime-fraud exception, a provision that allows prosecutors to work around attorney-client privilege if they have reason to believe that legal advice or legal services were used in furthering a crime."

RELATED: 'Too dumb to even play dumb': Legal expert says Trump is in deep trouble even if Iran document is lost

As part of the judge's order, Corcoran turned over his phone which contained a "voice memo Mr. Corcoran made last year — during a long car drive for a family event the morning after" he met with Trump over the disputed documents that are at the center of one of special counsel Jack Smith's investigations.

What Corcoran said has Trump insiders fearing the worst.

According to the Times, "Mr. Corcoran’s notes, which have not been previously described in such detail, will likely play a central role as Mr. Smith and his team move toward concluding their investigation and turn to the question of whether to bring charges against Mr. Trump. They could also show up as evidence in a courtroom if a criminal case is ultimately filed and goes to trial," with the report adding, "The level of detail in the recording is said to have angered and unnerved close aides to Mr. Trump who are worried they contain not only direct quotes from sensitive conversations."

The report adds, "...according to a description of the recorded notes, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Corcoran if he had to comply with the subpoena. Mr. Corcoran told him that he did. That exchange could be useful to prosecutors as they collect evidence on whether Mr. Trump sought to obstruct the subpoena process and interfere with the government’s broader efforts to retrieve all of the sensitive records that he took with him from the White House."

You can read more here.



https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-mar-a-lago-2660851585/