My concern all along ref: the most highly classified
documents (TS/SCI) at Mar-a-Lago taken into FBI government custody after their
daring DOJ approved raid has been: (1) What’s missing; (2) where are they; (3)
what do they contain (contents); (4) who possibly has them; (5) does Donald Trump
still hold all of some of them; and; (6) if he does, for what purpose?
Washington Post March 12, 2024 discusses this issue which I have said this is most-serious
of all the charges still pending against Trump. This one especially for serious
national security concerns with this headline (and formatted to fit the blog):
The central reason that Trump was indicted for
retaining documents marked as classified but President Biden and former
Trump VP Mike Pence were not is that Trump lied about his while hiding them the
government sought their return. Biden and Pence reported their holdings
immediately and handed them over the National Archives.
This is not a matter of
opinion; it is, instead, the distinction drawn by S/C Robert Hur when he declined to seek charges against Biden.
Trump was known to have documents and tried to keep them. Hence the indictment.
CNN published an interview with a former
Mar-a-Lago employee that bolsters one of the lingering possibilities
surrounding Trump’s action: That he may
still have documents at one of his other properties. Recall that the FBI search
for documents was limited to Trump’s Palm Beach estate.
The FBI gathered scores of documents from a storage room
near the pool and from Trump’s personal office. That was the third tranche of
documents the government had recovered. After grudgingly leaving the White
House in January 2021, Trump moved to Mar-a-Lago, bringing with him a number of
documents and mementos that he helped pack up. He also oversaw the return of a
number of boxes of material to the National Archives (NARA) allegedly returning 15 of more than 70 boxes he’d
brought to Mar-a-Lago.
The Archives found material marked as classified among the contents of the boxes and alerted the DOJ, and that led to the issuance of a federal subpoena for any material marked as classified. In early June 2022, attorneys working for Trump handed a DOJ official a package that they represented was the entirety of the classified or marked-as-classified documents still in Trump’s possession.
That was not true. That August 2022 FBI raid searched Mar-a-Lago and found more than 100 more classified documents.
It has been understood for some time that the lawyers assembling the package of documents to be handed over in response to the subpoena were not given access to all of the boxes of material.
Speaking to CNN, former Mar-a-Lago employee Brian Butler explained that, on the morning the DOJ arrived to take possession of that package, he helped load boxes into Trump’s plane before he left for his home in Bedminster, NJ.
The day before the DOJ arrived, Mar-a-Lago employees including
Nauta moved a number of boxes on the property that
included more than two dozen to Trump’s residence.
That was before the Trump attorneys began to search for responsive material. Then, on June 3 (one day later), Nauta reached out to Butler, who was in charge of vehicles at Mar-a-Lago.
Butler later told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins: “Walt had came to me and
asked me if he could use one of our Escalades. Since I ran the car service, I
pretty much kept control over the vehicles. I had loaded a bunch of the family
luggage into a minivan, and I was just going to drive it to the plane, load it
up, and that’s it.”
Butler later said he saw people later recognized as Trump’s attorneys at Mar-a-Lago that same day. The attorneys handed over the package of material and were allowed to look at the storage room where most of the material was stored. They also signed a document attesting that no other material existed. Butler then headed to the airport to load the Trumps’ private plane for the flight to Bedminster, NJ.
Butler also told Collins that Walt
Nauta had already left, and asked to be updated when Butler was on his way
while he was waiting “at a nearby business,”
Butler then told Collins: “I texted him, hey, I’m on my way. He then followed me. He pulled out and got behind me. We got to the airport. I ended up loading all the luggage I had. And he had a bunch of boxes, too.”
Collins then asked Butler: “Then you noticed that he had boxes?”
Butler replied: “Oh, yes, they were the boxes that were in the indictment. The white Bankers Boxes? That’s what I remember loading between 10 to 15 of them onto the plane.”
Butler then told Collins that he never saw them come back.
It is not necessarily the case that those boxes included
classified material, certainly.
Remember the context: This is the moment at which Trump’s attorneys were turning material over to the government that they’d plucked out of a subset of the boxes in Trump’s possession. Perhaps the movement on June 2 was simply about moving unrelated material to New Jersey when the Trumps left. Or perhaps material was transferred to Bedminster.
We do know that there was probably at least one
classified document at Bedminster after Trump left office: The one he had with
him in 2021 when he was speaking to writers working on a book for his former
chief of staff Mark Meadows.
That document, mentioned by Trump in a recording and later published by CNN, purportedly involved military plans.
CBS News reported in June that the document was not among those mentioned in Trump’s later indictment.
His lawyers indicated that they were unable to find any such document.
Trump’s lawyers had conducted a general search of Bedminster for any classified material in December 2022, without success.
Perhaps this was
because there were no classified documents on the property. Or, as was the case
at Mar-a-Lago the prior June, they simply weren’t given the chance to look in
the places where the documents were kept.
That’s the
fundamental divide being asked: Is
it a coincidence that boxes were moved prior to the arrival of attorneys
looking for classified material and that, the next day, boxes were flown to NJ,
or that Trump just lost that benefit of the doubt over the past few years?
There’s one other element of the Butler interview worth
mentioning. Sometime later, he was speaking to a friend and colleague, Carlos De Oliveira (Mar-a-Lago property manager) who had
been added to the original indictment targeting Trump and Nauta.
Butler also said that
he and De Oliveira were discussing the classified documents case when De
Oliveira said: “You know, we’re all dirty, we all move boxes.”
Butler replied that the only time he’d moved boxes was to
load them on the plane.
My 2 Cents: All of above and so much more is in the official record
and it is that which led to my introduction above and my several concerns about
document accountability that still remain my major concern. Favoritism by
Trump; his blackmail purpose; make big money; or leverage over someone?
Time will tell, but it’s for sure – Trump won’t tell.
He simply lets things play out and then if he is
charged, he gears up with tons of legal tactics to stale and delay like right
now with Judge Cannon in FL who keeps protecting Trump at every turn.
In my view she could care less about national security while only caring to help Trump win back the Oval Office and then I suspect she hopes that Trump will give her a seat on the Supreme Court for life.
That is simply my personal view tied to this delay and such by her.
Time will tell. Thanks for stopping by.
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