Dismissed

 

Remember this one?


Trump Claims He Never Gave “Red-Haired Weirdo” Classified Info About Nuclear Subs (Despite Reports to the Contrary)
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/10/donald-trump-anthony-pratt-classified-information

Another Trump lie busted.



Red flags went up’: Former Mar-a-Lago worker details Pratt’s relationship with Trump

By Farrah Tomazin
Updated March 12, 2024 — 7.19pmfirst published at 7.09pm






Washington: Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt has been accused of buying access to Donald Trump by a long-time employee of the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

In an exclusive interview with CNN, Brian Butler, a central witness in the investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents, spoke out about the case, which is one of four criminal trials the Republican faces before this year’s election.


Donald Trump and Anthony Pratt at Pratt Industries’ box factory in Ohio in 2019.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Butler – referenced as “Trump Employee 5” in the classified documents case overseen by Special Counsel Jack Smith – told CNN host Kaitlan Collins how Pratt, one of Australia’s richest men and a member of the Mar-a-Lago club, flew in for a meeting with Trump in April 2021 and later divulged top secrets.

After the meeting, Butler claims Pratt got in a car with Butler and his chief of staff, who asked him: “How did it go?”


According to Butler, the chairman of multinational paper and packaging company Visy Industries immediately divulged classified information that Trump had given him “about Russian submarines and US submarines”.

“I’m in the car. I’m like: did I just hear that?” Butler recalled. “He went straight to the point, he told me … something that in my mind would more than likely be classified.”











0:40

Aussie billionaire Pratt’s dealings with Trump revealed in secret audio





60 Minutes, in a joint investigation with the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, has obtained audio recordings of Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt, revealing his dealings with Donald Trump.

“So it was clear to you that he was basically seeking access to Trump?” Collins asked, referencing claims that Pratt spent $US1 million for tickets to a Mar-a-Lago New Year’s Eve gala – essentially paying a massive mark-up for tickets that Butler claimed “might cost $1000 to $1500 per person”.

“Oh absolutely. I mean, red flags went up in my mind years before that,” Butler replied. “Here’s a guy just buying access.”


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In a draft copy of a speech Pratt delivered to a Jewish group in late 2019, Pratt describes how he “became a member of the Mar-a- Lago resort” as a “strategic” play to secure access to Trump.

“My membership has given me a seat at the table where the president relaxes socially and mingles with his guests … The key thing being a member at Mar-a-Lago has done has been that I see the president a few times a year.”



Pratt has previously not responded to requests for comments from this masthead about his relationship with Trump. CNN said Pratt had also previously declined to comment when approached on the topic and a representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

Comment had also been sought by this masthead relating to claims made in the Butler interview.


The charges Trump faces over classified documents relate to material the former president took after leaving the White House in 2021 and which were stored in boxes all over his Mar-a-Lago resort, including “in a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, an office space, his bedroom, and a storage room”.

[paste:font size="5"]Related Article

They included information relating to nuclear programs and military vulnerabilities, to intelligence that should have only been shared with the intelligence heads of the Five Eyes” countries, including Australia.

While Trump has repeatedly denied the claims, Butler disagreed and outlined how he unknowingly participated in transporting boxes of classified documents.

“For [Trump] to get up there all the time and say the things he says about this being a witch hunt and everything. … He just can’t take responsibility for anything,” Butler said.


The latest revelations come after Pratt was in the spotlight last year amid a joint investigation by this masthead and 60 Minutes, which uncovered separate audio recordings of Pratt talking about his relationship with “mafia”-like Trump and his claim of a $US1 million payment to Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.

Related Article

The covert recordings also reveal that Pratt had claimed Trump disclosed non-public details about US military action in Iraq and a private conversation with Iraq’s leader.

Trump dismissed those accounts at the time, posting on social media that the stories “about a red-haired weirdo from Australia, named Anthony Pratt, is Fake News”.

However, the investigation substantiated previous reporting from America’s ABC News that suggested Trump shared more classified information than was previously known, and that Pratt had divulged that information with scores of people, including former prime ministers and journalists.


The Australian businessman could now be one of dozens of witnesses in the trial against Trump, although the starting court date is yet to be determined.

With eight months until the election, Trump has argued that he is immune from prosecution by the Presidential Records Act and that criminal law involving the mishandling of national security secrets can’t be applied to him as a former president.

Aileen Cannon, the judge overseeing the trial – who Trump appointed while he was president – has said she wants to hear oral arguments about Trump’s immunity claim this Thursday (Friday AEDT).

The Republican frontrunner also faces a trial in Washington DC for trying to overthrow the 2020 election, a trial in Georgia for trying to interfere in the election in that state, and a trial in New York, starting this month, over alleged hush money paid to a porn star with whom he had an affair.

“Not fair that the Radical Left Democrats are attempting to take me to trial smack in the middle of Election Season,” he wrote tonight. “It’s a Political Witch Hunt. This cannot be allowed to happen. ELECTION INTERFERENCE!”


https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-...-relationship-with-trump-20240312-p5fbto.html

 

Mar-a-Lago employee: I saw evidence of a cover-up as authorities came for classified docs

Matthew Chapman
March 20, 2024 7:39PM ET



NEW YORK, NEW YORK - DECEMBER 7: Former U.S. President Donald Trump returns from a court recess and speaks to the media during his trial in New York State Supreme Court on December 7, 2023 in New York City. Trump's civil fraud trial alleges that he and his two sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump conspired to inflate his net worth on financial statements provided to banks and insurers to secure loans. New York Attorney General Letitia James has sued seeking $250 million in damages. (Photo by David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)




Former Mar-a-Lago employee Brian Butler, identified as Employee #5 in special counsel Jack Smith's classified documents indictment of former President Donald Trump, gave an interview on MSNBC Wednesday night — and revealed new details about the things he saw as he was ordered to help transport boxes.

In particular, Butler told anchor and legal expert Ari Melber, Trump's repeated claims that he had a legal right to declassify and take the documents stands in stark contrast to the efforts he seemed to take to conceal what he was doing from the authorities.

Melber began by playing a clip of Trump decrying the charges: "They're breaking every law to persecute us. It's been one witch hunt and phony investigation after another. These are ridiculous indictments. The single greatest witch hunt of all time. It's all run by the DOJ. It's crooked stuff. They're crooked people. Deranged Jack Smith."

ALSO READ: Trump is exploiting, abusing, playing, bending and breaking the legal system

"I mean, the way I see it, if these were his personal — personal documents and — or he's allowed to have these by the [Presidential Records Act], why would you need to ask questions about video footage?" said Butler. "Why would you possibly move the documents when they are coming to retrieve them? To me it just doesn't make any sense. On top of that, why would you put two lower level employees in the position they're in, if you did nothing wrong and these are your own — these are your personal documents?"

"So you're saying that in the way that he acted, trying to hide, and the people that he brought into it, you think you observed part of a coverup?" Melber pressed him.

"I think it's very possible from what I saw, the questions — you know, why would they ask about video footage? How long it's deleted for?" said Butler. "Those are conversations, you know, Carlos told me he was tasked with finding out prior to Walt's arrival on a secret trip."

Watch the video below or click here.




https://www.rawstory.com/trump-evidence-mar-a-lago-cover-up/

 

The list of people willing to go to prison for Trump gets shorter every day.

 

And Brian Butler is the kind of guy that is Trump's worst nightmare. There's nothing to him. He's just an average guy that landed a job and stuck with it for about years. But he stayed grounded in reality and didn't fall into the Trump cult. And became shocked at who all did and how far they fell under the influence. Until he reached the point of saying hey I am not only not going to commit crimes for Trump. Its wrong and I am going to do the right thing.

Its also a nightmare for Judge Cannon as well. She's doing everything she can to keep all of this from seeing the light of day and Butler is out there blabbing it all over the place. Which exposes Cannon's corrupt games.

 

For a criminal conspiracy to succeed, all conspirators must have equal risk and equal reward.

Trump's classified documents conspiracy may be the most stupid crime he has ever committed, if for no other reason, there's no money in it. If Trump wanted to sell documents to the Russians or the Chinese, it wouldn't make a dent in his debts. This was a crime of ego and ego can't be distributed. Trump assumed he could keep the documents because he thinks anything he touches is his to keep. There was no planning or conspiracy at that point. He could have given everything back and it would be nothing. Instead, it becomes a criminal conspiracy that required the cooperation of many people who weren't in on the plan.

Butler never became an acolyte. He was just working for a paycheck. He was one of many who wasn't in on the con, but got to watch it play out.

 

Its all part of Trump's overall mental illness. In his delusional reality he is always the smartest, the toughest, invincible and infallible and no one can tell him what he can and cannot to. And I think there is a little hoarder thrown in there as well. Another problem they had was the White House cleaning staff had to go to Trump's advisors and tell them they had to do something about Trump hiding White House dishes and silverware under his bed and closets. And it wasn't just that it appeared he was trying to steal them. They were running low on some dishes and it was just gross. So the advisors had to make Trump stop raging at the staff and threatening to fire them.

Which is exactly what you said. Taking the classified documents was the most stupid crime there could be. And the National Archives and DOJ would rather have soaked their clothes in gasoline and ran through hell than to have to take Trump on over it. But at every turn both the classified documents he had and his crimes of trying to hang on to them just kept getting worse and worse until they had no choice.

And his poor cult followers just kept going along with that psychosis unlike Butler that said no this is fucking nuts.

 

This is so far beyond Judge Cannon trying to rig the trial in Trump's favor. I have never seen more monumental ignorance of the law and someone unfit to be on the bench than Cannon in my life.



Jack Smith has to 'spoon feed' Aileen Cannon the law in classified docs case: legal expert

Matthew Chapman
April 3, 2024 11:01AM ET




Jack Smith (Photo by Jerry Lampen for AFP)




Special counsel Jack Smith is losing his patience with far-right Judge Aileen Cannon in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case as she slow-walks the process in favor of former President Donald Trump and disregards her own duties in jury instructions, argued former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance in a lengthy post on X Wednesday.

Her post came after Smith submitted a blistering court filing in which he faulted the judge for, among other things, ordering the jury consider if classified documents Trump was hoarding were his personal property under the Presidential Records Act.

In fact, Vance noted, Smith calls out that it was supposed to be Cannon's job to make that determination herself in pretrial hearings, not leave it as a hypothetical for the jury to consider.

Trump had argued that Cannon should dismiss the trial based on his claim that the PRA made the classified documents his personal property. So far, she has not done that.

"Judge Cannon ducked ruling on Trump's motion to dismiss the classified documents case based on the Presidential Records Act, instead asking lawyers to submit jury instructions assuming it did. Special Counsel's Office isn't buying it," wrote Vance.

"That's because if the Judge doesn't rule ahead of trial she can dismiss the prosecution during trial & in that posture the government can't appeal because of double jeopardy. So it was clear they would have to force her hand at this point."

ALSO READ: No, Donald Trump, fraud is not protected by the First Amendment

Federal prosecutors aren't usually this "aggressive" with judges, Vance wrote — but "she left them with no other choice."

What's more, Vance concluded, Smith appears to be setting up an appeal to the 11th Circuit, just like he did a year ago when Cannon blocked the FBI from accessing the seized classified documents in a counterintelligence investigation, and the appellate judges above her smacked her down hard.

"The Special Counsel cites law from the 11th Circuit's sister circuit, the Fifth, that lets them bring a writ of mandamus asking the appellate court to correct a district judge's decision to use a clearly erroneous jury instruction that could lead to acquittal," wrote Vance.

"Smith spoon feeds the Judge the law, giving her the opportunity to get it right even at this late date. If she doesn't, expect the 11th Cir to bench slap her when he appeals in a way that makes last year's decision look mild (& they weren't)."


https://www.rawstory.com/jack-smith-aileen-cannon-2667669120/

 

Opinion
Witness: We Were Begging Trump’s Entire Family in Classified Docs Case
Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling
Mon, April 22, 2024 at 3:56 PM MDT·2 min read
101

• 
  

A newly unsealed FBI interview with an unidentified Trumpworld character unearths some eyebrow-raising details regarding Donald Trump’s classified documents case—namely, that family members were told to beg him to return the sensitive material back to the federal government.

In late October/early November of 2021, the unidentified individual pleaded with the former president, telling him that “whatever you have, give it all back,” according to the FBI memo, made public Monday.

But attempting to reason with Trump directly didn’t work. Instead, Trump “wanted to know how anyone knew of the issue.” When he was informed it was all documented in writing, he replied “we’ll check and think about it.”


So, in lieu of that, the unidentified individual claimed they tapped several people around the president in a coordinated effort to get Trump to return the documents, believing that hearing a ubiquitous call to return the federal property would influence Trump to actually do so. That included reaching out to some of his children.

The message was, essentially, “there are issues with the boxes. They belong to the government, talk to your dad about giving them back, It’s not worth the aggravation,” according to the FBI memo.

While the names of the individuals interviewed or involved in the scheme were redacted prior to the interview’s release, other Trumpworld individuals have already speculated as to who could have been behind or involved in the scheme to return the trove of documents to the government. According to former Trump fixer Michael Cohen, that may have been Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.

Trump has since outright admitted to taking the sensitive records. In a prerecorded interview on Newsmax, Trump claimed point blank that he actually did take the classified documents, describing the process of shamelessly packing them away while leaving office.

“I took ’em very legally,” Trump said. “And I wasn’t hiding them.”


https://news.yahoo.com/witness-were-begging-trump-entire-215607388.html

 

'So appalled': What witnesses told special counsel about Trump's handling of classified info while still president
KATHERINE FAULDERS, MIKE LEVINE and ALEXANDER MALLIN
Wed, April 24, 2024 at 2:58 PM MDT·9 min read
823

• 
  

In the summer of 2019, only hours after an Iranian rocket accidentally exploded at one of Iran's own launch sites, senior U.S. officials met with then-president Donald Trump and shared a sharply detailed, highly classified image of the blast's catastrophic aftermath.

The image was captured by a U.S. satellite whose true capabilities were a tightly guarded secret. But Trump wanted to share it with the world -- he thought it was especially "sexy" because it was marked classified, one of his former advisers later recalled to special counsel Smith's investigators, according to sources familiar with the former adviser's statements.

Worried that the image becoming public could hurt national security efforts, intelligence officials urged Trump to hold off until more knowledgeable experts were able to weigh in, the sources said. But less than an hour later, while at least one of those intelligence officials was in another building scrambling to get more information, Trump posted the image to Twitter.


"It was so upsetting, and people were really angry," one of Trump's former advisers told investigators, sources said.

The public pushback to Trump's post was immediate: Intelligence experts and even international media questioned whether U.S. interests had just been endangered by what Trump did. When pressed about it at the White House, Trump insisted he hadn't released classified information because he had an "absolute right to do" it.

While much of Smith's sprawling classified documents investigation has focused on how Trump handled classified materials after leaving the White House, a wide array of former aides and advisers -- including personal valets, press assistants, senior national security officials, and even Trump's briefers from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence -- have provided Smith with firsthand accounts about how Trump allegedly handled and used intelligence while still in office.

Those firsthand accounts, as relayed to ABC News by sources, underscore what could be at stake as Trump seeks a return to the White House, and they are coming to light as he is likely on the verge of receiving formal government briefings again as the Republican Party's official nominee in the 2024 presidential election.


PHOTO: Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media after voting at a polling station setup in the Morton and Barbara Mandel Recreation Center, Mar. 19, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
In interviews with investigators last year, former aides and national security officials who were close to Trump in the White House described a president who could erupt in anger when presented with intelligence he didn't want to hear, who routinely reviewed and stored classified information in unsecured locations, and who had what some former officials described as "a cavalier attitude" toward the damage that could be done by its disclosure, according to sources.

A book published on the CIA's website, describing the intelligence community's experience with Trump during his transition to the presidency and then his time in the White House, said that while Trump was "suspicious and insecure about the intelligence process," he still "engaged with it," even as he publicly attacked it.

The book also noted that Trump was "unique" among presidents in that, before taking over the White House, "he had no experience handling classified information or working with military, diplomatic, or intelligence programs and operations."

'Hand in the woodchipper'
As former officials described meetings with Trump to Smith's team, Trump only wanted to listen to new information about certain parts of the world, according to sources.

In particular, the sources said, Smith's team was told that Trump was uninterested in hearing about Latin America or countries that he similarly thought were not essential. The sources said witnesses confirmed previous public reporting that Trump referred to such places as "s---hole countries" and suggested the United States should stop welcoming migrants from them.

Today, on the presidential campaign trail, Trump continues to rail against migrants from Latin American countries and others who reached the southern border through parts of Latin America.

Sources said former officials also told Smith's team that Trump refused to listen to certain briefings related to Russia, saying Trump "absolutely" didn't want to hear about Russian influence operations, and he couldn't be convinced that Russian troops were already operating inside Ukraine -- even as his own administration was publicly calling out their routine incursions into the country's eastern region to support Russian-backed separatists.

On the campaign trail, Trump recently insisted that he would have prevented Russia's all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 if he were still commander-in-chief.

According to the sources, one of Trump's former advisers joked with Smith's team last year that bringing up Russia during a meeting with Trump was like "stick[ing] my hand in the woodchipper again."

In its most recent worldwide assessment, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded that Russia continues to pose a significant threat to U.S. national security and, more broadly, to "rules-based international order."


As he has done in public, Trump often privately disagreed with conclusions reached by the U.S. intelligence community, especially related to Russia and Ukraine, choosing instead to rely on unverified claims from other people, sources said that Smith's investigators were told.

And sources said former aides confirmed to Smith's investigators previous media reports that Trump almost never read the President's Daily Brief, a report summarizing classified intelligence and analysis on the day's most pressing issues.

Trump preferred to receive such summaries verbally, according to sources.

Reached for comment, a spokesperson for Trump referred ABC News to a statement by the former president in which he called the classified documents case a "two-tiered system of justice and unconstitutional selective prosecution."

A spokesperson for the special counsel declined to comment to ABC News.

'Like a junk drawer'
Throughout Trump's presidency, many of those who interacted with Trump every day saw him bring classified documents to unsecured locations, raising concerns among some of them, several witnesses told Smith's team, the sources said.

As early as 2018, the Office of the Staff Secretary, which manages the documents flowing to the Oval Office, began asking personnel in the White House about documents that had gone missing, including some classified ones, one of Trump's personal valets told investigators, sources said.

And at one point, sources said the valet recalled, he even warned the staff secretary's office that classified documents were being taken out of secure locations in white boxes and ending up in all sorts of potentially concerning places.

According to the sources, several witnesses told Smith's team that they routinely saw classified documents or classified folders in Trump's White House residence, and that Trump would sometimes store as many as 30 boxes in his bedroom, which one valet said Trump treated "like a junk drawer."


While it's not clear how many boxes at any given time in Trump's residence contained documents with classification markings, witnesses said they frequently observed boxes and papers traveling from the Oval Office to his residence that contained classified documents, according to sources familiar with what witnesses have told the special counsel.

"I did not think that he respected what classified information was," sources quoted one former official as telling investigators.

In Trump's first year in office, several media reports described how Trump had allegedly exposed sensitive information: In February 2017, he and Japan's then-prime minister reportedly discussed a response to North Korea's latest ballistic missile test over dinner in a crowded dining room at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, and then two months later Trump told the Philippines president on a phone call that the U.S. military had positioned two nuclear submarines near North Korea.

The following month, Trump reportedly shared highly-sensitive intelligence about ISIS with Russian officials visiting the White House.

Some witnesses who spoke with Smith's team, however, said they were not concerned by what they saw while Trump was president.

Robert O'Brien, who served as Trump's national security adviser at the end of his presidency, told Smith's team that Trump "consistently" handled classified information appropriately, sources said.

'The Hunger Games'
As some former officials described it to Smith's investigators, discussing the latest intelligence with Trump could be an unpredictable task, sources said.

At times he would become so upset over what senior national security or intelligence officials were telling him that it would derail entire meetings, according to sources familiar with what witnesses told investigators.

In one series of meetings, ahead of an international summit in Europe, Trump met with then-CIA director Gina Haspel, then-Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and others to help plan for the summit. But when Trump was told positive things about one of the people he would likely meet at the summit, Trump "lost it," insisting that he didn't care, then he "lost it" again when he was being updated on a tax-related negotiation involving Mnuchin, sources said.



The sources said Trump then pitted one of his top aides against Mnuchin in front of everyone else, escalating the tension so much that it reminded one of those present of the movie "The Hunger Games," with its dystopian death match broadcast live on national TV.

The book published on the CIA's website quoted former President Barack Obama's director of national intelligence, James Clapper, as saying that Trump was prone to "fly off on tangents; there might be eight or nine minutes of real intelligence in an hour's discussion."

And while the intelligence community worked with evidence, Trump "was 'fact-free' -- evidence doesn't cut it with him," according to Clapper.

Still, Clapper said Trump could be "courteous, affable, and complimentary" when he engaged with or referred to members of the U.S. intelligence community.

'People were really angry'
Sources said that, as one former official described it to Smith's team, Trump's posting of the image from Iran's failed rocket launch revealed how the then-president "just didn't care" about protecting classified information.

In 2021, Yahoo! News described how, during his briefing with intelligence officials, Trump thought the image "was very neat, and asked if he could keep it," which made some of the intelligence officials nervous, according to an administration official. But that news report didn't offer the same detailed account provided to Smith by witnesses last year.

Sources told ABC News that while speaking with Smith's team, former aides and officials said Trump was specifically warned at the time that while he had the authority to declassify the image of Iran's botched launch, there were also potential risks associated with doing that.

Trump initially agreed to wait while intelligence officials were then consulted, sources said, but the intelligence officials apparently took too long; about an hour later, Trump posted the image online.

"I was so appalled," one former national security official told Smith's team, according to the sources.

The former official noted that Trump may have believed it wasn't a big deal -- but only an expert would know if releasing such classified information could reveal "how we got it" it and whether it could "compromise our ability to get [it] in the future," the former official explained to Smith's team, according to the sources.



https://www.yahoo.com/news/appalled-witnesses-told-special-counsel-205822504.html

 

The "intelligence community""?

Why yes, we can see they always have the interests of America as a first priority to guide all that they do.

Including, of course, our national elections.

Whatever it takes.

 

Jack Smith slams Trump valet's new trial stall tactic as 'manufactured and not credible'

Matthew Chapman
May 3, 2024 7:13PM ET




Jack Smith (Photpo by Jerry Lampen for AFP)




Federal prosecutors slammed former President Donald Trump's body man Walt Nauta for his latest push to delay the trial proceedings in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, in a blistering filing made public on Friday.

Specifically, Nauta has filed for an extension on the May 9 deadline U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon set for expert disclosures filed by the defendants, and a notice under the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA).

"Originally, Nauta had counted on leveraging his counsel’s vacation and trial schedule to delay the proceedings," stated the filing. "But when his counsel’s trial schedule excuse evaporated, Nauta was forced to devise a new basis — that the Government’s discovery is insufficient for him to identify the classified evidence he wants to disclose at trial and to notice any expert testimony. Nauta’s latest basis for delay is both factually wrong."

ALSO READ: Trump vs. history: Former presidents typically implode on their comeback tours

"In his motion, Nauta resorts to a familiar tactic by trying to paint a confusing and misleading picture of the state of discovery, but at bottom, his arguments are uncomplicated," said the filing. "First, as to CIPA Section 5, Nauta claims that he cannot make the required disclosures without knowing 'for certain' (a) which documents produced in classified discovery were recovered from boxes in the Storage Room; and (b) where those documents were found in the boxes. ECF No. 507 at 10. Both claims are flawed. The premise of the first — that Nauta has not been informed which documents came from storage room boxes — is inaccurate. Nauta was provided that information many months ago. The conclusion of the second — that Nauta needs to know where the documents were within each box in order to make a CIPA Section 5 disclosure — is recently manufactured and not credible."

The filing concluded by urging the judge to hold Nauta to the deadline she set back in April. "The Government has timely met and exceeded its obligations, and there is no further information that Nauta needs to make any expert disclosure regarding the forensic examination of his devices."

Nauta is one of two co-defendants indicted alongside Trump in the classified documents case, the other being Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos de Oliveira. They are accused of helping Trump move the illegally held boxes of documents around to conceal them from authorities, and conspiring to try to destroy security footage of it.



https://www.rawstory.com/jack-smith-slams-walt-nauta-delay/

 

'Crimes on top of crimes': Internet erupts over classified docs found in Trump's bedroom

Matthew Chapman
May 21, 2024 4:20PM ET




Photos: FBI




Former President Donald Trump had even more classified documents hidden away in his bedroom — four months after the FBI executed their search at Mar-a-Lago.

The revelation, spelled out in newly-released court filings, caused an eruption from observers on social media.

"Crimes on top of crimes," wrote music producer Shawn Patterson.

"In my observation, not even the anti-anti-Trumpers defend the 'documents case.' (The outright Trumpers, sure. With them, the Fifth Avenue Principle applies.)" wrote Jay Nordlinger, an editor for the conservative National Review.

"Utter disregard shown for US security," wrote Doug Thompson of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

ALSO READ: Trump campaign allegedly took ‘excessive’ contributions by the nickel and dime

Other commenters took aim specifically at U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the jurist overseeing the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case against the former president.

A Trump-appointee, Cannon caused outrage when she punted the case indefinitely, beyond the election, citing the large number of unresolved issues to rule on — many of which critics say she sat on for months without action.

Cannon in a recent filing also expressed her "disappointment" in special counsel Jack Smith for asking for redactions to protect witnesses and grand jurors.

"Reminder that the MAL docs case was and will always have been the cleanest, most straightforward criminal prosecution of the four against the former president," wrote national security lawyer Bradley Moss. "That the public won't see it brought to fruition before they go to the voting booth is a stain on the judicial system."

"Trump was still keeping classified documents in his bedroom AFTER the Mar-a-Lago search but according to Judge Cannon, what they were, why he had them & what he did with them are simply not questions the American people should have answers to before casting our votes in November," wrote political commentator @JoJoFromJerz.

"Cannon is a f---ing accomplice and you can't convince me otherwise," wrote former Ohio Democratic congressional candidate Aaron Paul Godfrey.



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

 

Jack Smith hands over 500 pages to Trump — and jabs Cannon for making him do it

Kathleen Culliton
May 23, 2024 12:04PM ET




(Photo: Creative commons and FBI exhibit)




Special counsel Jack Smith Thursday handed over nearly 500 pages of materials to Donald Trump after the former president's lawyers accused him "extraordinary" misconduct in the classified documents case, court records show.

In his letter to Florida federal court judge Aileen Cannon, Smith takes a stiff tone when he reports delivering 457 pages of discovery materials linked to Trump's accusations that the Justice department tampered with evidence.

"The Government’s position [is] that such production exceeds its current discovery obligations," Smith writes.

This measured remark stands in stark contrast to the letter from Trump's lead attorney Todd Blanche which spurred Thursday's massive document dump, court records show.

On May 4, Blanche accused Smith of "extraordinary breach of your constitutional and ethical obligations" regarding boxes of documents seized from Trump's social club Mar-a-Lago.

ALSO READ: 'A fantasy of manhood': Are frat boys the new Proud Boys?

"We find your contentions to be self-serving and frivolous given your indefensible handling of the evidence at issue—you cannot seriously contend that your recent spoliation concession is irrelevant to President Trump’s pending pretrial motions," Blanche wrote.

In a further request for back-up from Cannon, dated May 6, Blanche sneered at Smith's "dismissive and condescending tone."

The subject of this tense legal battle is Smith's earlier admission that some documents were rearranged before they were scanned into the Justice department's system.

While Smith's team described the incident as an inconsistency, Blanche argued prosecutors were guilty of a "full-throated but now concededly false assertions of compliance with their discovery obligations."

This aligns with Trump's consistent messaging that the Justice Department is partaking in a political witch hunt to torpedo his 2024 presidential campaign.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges.



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

 

This Smith character is an attorney?
Huh.
See, anyone who has ever been involved in a court case of any import knows, discovery is a fundamental part of the process.
A critical part of the process.

The persecutor in a criminal case has an absolute and sacred obligation to share with the defense ALL of the evidence in their possession or that they are aware of. ALL OF IT.
Even the evidence that is exculpatory (note to despicables, exculpatory means anything that is favorable to, or tends to absolve, the defendant.) And courts are intolerant of persecutors who try to get cute with discovery. Capitol murder cases (note to despicables, a Capitol murder case can involve the death penalty) have been dismissed and the perpetrator set free because the persecutor didn't strictly follow the rules of discovery.
Analyses of Rule 37 - Failure to Make Disclosures or to Cooperate in Discovery; Sanctions, Fed. R. Civ. P. 37 | Casetext

So this Smith fellow, playing around with Discovery in the Trump case can only mean one of two things; either Smith is an idiot or Smith has something to hide.

 

If you exist inside a little plastic bubble where you say things like a small child with an imaginary friend and pretends to be an ex-cop you can also pretend the same discovery process of an imaginary court case would apply to a case that involves top secret classified information that would cause grave harm to our national security if it became public. But anyone living in the real world grounded in reality knows better.



'Smart move': Legal experts say new Jack Smith filing will 'highlight Judge Cannon's bias'

David McAfee
May 24, 2024 10:23PM ET




Special Counsel Jack Smith delivers remarks on a recently unsealed indictment including four felony counts against former U.S. President Donald Trump on August 1, 2023 in Washington, DC. Trump was indicted on four felony counts for his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)




Special Counsel Jack Smith's latest filing in the Florida classified documents case is carefully tailored to expose a jurist who has tipped the scales for defendant Donald Trump, legal experts said Friday.

Smith on Friday asked Judge Cannon, who is overseeing the case, to gag Trump to prevent the former president from making further statements that could endanger law enforcement officers. The filing is based on Trump's recent repetition of a false conspiracy theory that mischaracterized the search of his Mar-a-Lago golf club as an attempt to take his life.

But the filing is a trap for Cannon, who has been accused of slow-walking the ex-president's case such that the trial has been indefinitely postponed.


Roger Parloff, a senior editor at Lawfare, noted that the special counsel's new motion, seeking to halt the recent lies about an assassination attempt, "is crafted to highlight Judge Cannon's bias and hypocrisy if she fails to take action."

"The motion twice cites Cannon's order 'ECF 101' in which she, on her own, invoked her 'independent obligation to protect the integrity of this judicial proceeding' in order to probe a dubious defense allegation of a prosecutor's ethical breach," according to Parloff. "Jack's new motion challenges Cannon to act on Trump's outlandish attacks on the FBI--which have already triggered an armed attack on an FBI office in Cincinnati--with a fraction of her solicitude for policing special counsel's ethics."

Andrew Weissmann, the former top prosecutor on former special counsel Robert Mueller's team, hailed the move by Smith's team.

"Smart move by Smith as Judge Cannon won't be likely to grant the gag order, will show her patent bias, and Smith can then appeal to the 11th Circuit," he said Friday.





https://www.rawstory.com/jack-smith-smart-move-trump-cannon-bias/

 

"If you exist inside a little plastic bubble where you say things like a small child with an imaginary friend and pretends to be an ex-cop you can also pretend the same discovery process of an imaginary court case would apply to a case that involves top secret classified information that would cause grave harm to our national security if it became public. But anyone living in the real world grounded in reality knows better."
​

Really! The dyslexic rough neck alleged former newspaper editor thinks his biased opinion supercedes 150 years of supreme court case law on discovery and persecutor misconduct.

Perhaps the gun toting, truck driving, rig rat wrong story pushing cowboy would drop a note to supreme court judge Roberts and let him know about this potential breach of national security.

 

New motion to dismiss Mar-a-Lago case claims Trump didn't know about 'comingled' docs

David Edwards
June 11, 2024 11:06AM ET




Classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago (Photos: FBI)




Attorneys for former President Donald Trump moved to dismiss a superseding indictment in his classified documents case and to have all evidence from the search of Mar-a-Lago thrown out.

In a 29-page filing Monday, Trump's attorneys told U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that special counsel Jack Smith's team had tainted the evidence against the former president.

"President Donald J. Trump respectfully submits this motion to dismiss the Superseding Indictment, and to suppress all evidence seized in connection with the August 2022 raid at Mar-a-Lago, based on the FBI's destruction of important exculpatory evidence relating to the locations of the allegedly classified documents at issue," the motion said.

The filing claimed that Trump must have been unaware that he had taken classified documents from the government because they were "comingled" with his personal items.

"The fact that the allegedly classified documents were buried in boxes and comingled with President Trump's personal effects from his first term in office strongly supported the defense argument that he lacked knowledge and culpable criminal intent with respect to the documents at issue," the document explained.

In a superseding indictment filed in 2023, Smith contended that Trump sought to have his employees delete security footage requested by a federal grand jury. Trump had previously faced 37 counts related to the mishandling of classified documents.

He has pleaded not guilty to all 45 counts against him.

Before the indictment, one Trump attorney was warned that "it's going to be a crime" if he didn't turn over the documents.



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