FBI raids Trump’s Mar-a-Lago

[Rick Plant]

DOJ releases photos of highly classified documents it seized from Trump’s home, which were mixed in with framed Time Magazine covers. DOJ just proved Trump guilty of narcissism and espionage at the same time. Lock him up!

[Rick Plant]

Remember, this filing is officially for the DOJ to prove to the judge that Trump’s special master request is invalid.

But the DOJ received permission to make a forty page filing, and is using it to unofficially show the public just how guilty Trump is.

[Rick Plant]

DOJ says it seized some of the classified documents from inside Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago desk.

[Rick Plant]

The DOJ waited until nearly midnight eastern time before filing its forty page response in the Donald Trump classified documents case. Officially, this filing was to convince a judge that Trump’s belated request for a special master is pointless. Unofficially, the filing was the DOJ’s opportunity to show the public just how guilty Trump is, without having to so much as hold a press conference.

Now that the filing has been released, let’s just say that it should be enough to put Trump away for a long, long time. The DOJ included photos of highly classified documents, clearly identified by their cover sheets, that were found in boxes amongst (possibly fake) framed Time Magazine covers of Trump. So in that sense the DOJ just proved Trump guilty of narcissism and espionage at the same time. But it gets far worse.

The filing also reveals that the DOJ found classified documents inside Donald Trump’s personal desk at Mar-a-Lago. This is the part that erases any reasonable doubt argument he might have tried to make when this gets to trial. Even if he tried to claim that someone on his staff stole those boxes of classified documents and took them to Mar-a-Lago without Trump’s knowledge, this would never explain why some of the documents were inside Trump’s desk. This is, in effect, game over.

But it gets worse for Trump. The filing also reveals that Trump received a grand jury subpoena for all of the classified documents several months ago. This means that when Trump only turned over some of the documents and falsely claimed that they were all of the documents he didn’t merely defy a DOJ request; he defied a grand jury subpoena. That’s textbook felony obstruction of justice.

Now we’re officially on Trump indictment watch. It’s coming. It’s anyone’s guess as to when. It could be next week or next year. But the DOJ doesn’t get this deep into an espionage and obstruction probe without bringing charges. Donald Trump knows it too, which is why he spent all of Tuesday having the meltdown of a lifetime. Now he’s staring at life in prison.

[Rick Plant]

After the DOJ had the FBI carry out a search and seizure warrant for the classified documents that Donald Trump stole and hid in his home, Trump complained that they’d also seized his passports. What did this mean? Were they trying to keep him from fleeing the country? Were they merely in with the boxes of seized documents? Now it turns out it’s a different, and rather damning, answer.

This new DOJ filing reveals that the Feds found clearly labeled classified documents in Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago desk, making it much harder for him to argue that he somehow wasn’t involved in the theft and transport of these documents. The DOJ also found Trump’s passports in that desk, and took them as proof that this was indeed Trump’s desk. This passage flagged by the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell is key: “The location of the passports is relevant evidence.”

NEW: DOJ says FBI found one current and one expired official passport, and one expired personal passport, with classified documents in a desk drawer — seemingly tying Trump himself to the unauthorized retention of govt docs: “The location of the passports is relevant evidence”

https://twitter.com/hugolowell/status/1564965683196268549

In other words, if you’re Donald Trump, and you have classified documents in the same desk drawer that you keep your passports in, then you’re clearly treating those classified documents as your own personal property. This will help erase any reasonable doubt arguments that Trump will try to make at trial.

This is all before getting to the question of whether Trump might have been planning to flee the country, and whether he might have intended to take those specific passport-adjacent classified documents with him. Anyone who’s this deep into the process of being criminally indicted for espionage is surely being watched by the DOJ to make sure he doesn’t try to flee. But would Trump know that?

[Rick Plant]

When the DOJ asked the judge for special permission to file a whopping forty page response to Donald Trump’s request for a special master, it was pretty clear that the DOJ was looking to publicly spell out just how guilty Trump is.

Now that the filing has surfaced, it’s even more clear where this is headed. Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissman summed it up this way on Twitter: “You don’t make a filing this strong, bold, and factually accusatory if you don’t have every intention to indict.”

He’s correct, of course. The DOJ didn’t need to put forty pages out there publicly, just to get a judge to realize it’s too late for a special master to do anything; that could have been accomplished in five paragraphs. This filing was the DOJ’s big chance to educate the public on just how guilty Trump is, and the DOJ eagerly jumped all over that chance.

This filing clearly takes things past the point of no return, and if the DOJ weren’t already 100% certain that it’s going to criminally charge Trump over this, it wouldn’t have made this filing. The only question is when it’ll happen – and even that answer is far less important than the reality that the DOJ has indeed already decided to charge him.

[Rick Plant]

The best advice any lawyer could give to Donald Trump right now would be to shut up before he incriminates himself further. Of course Trump appears to be surrounded by lawyers so bad that some of them are now also implicated by the Department of Justice. So naturally, Trump is doing the dumbest thing he can do right now, which is to run his mouth.

To that end, Trump is trying to push the laughable argument that the DOJ and FBI tried to make him look bad when they posted a photograph of clearly-labeled top secret documents that they’d found in a carton alongside some of his personal effects. Trump’s argument is that the Feds strewed the items around to make Trump look disorganized, or something. The trouble? Well, see if you can spot it:

Renato Mariotti @renato_mariotti

Trump's admission that the classified material was "in cartons" at his residence is evidence of his guilt.

It would be like a defendant taking issue with a FBI photo showing bricks of cocaine on the floor of his residence instead of "in cartons." It admits possession.



https://twitter.com/renato_mariotti/status/1565101591891480576

That’s right, in his attempt at seizing control of the narrative, it looks like Donald Trump just screwed up and confessed. By stating that he had the classified documents in cartons, he’s admitting that he knew he had classified documents in his possession. This may seem trivial in the world of social media, but it’s the kind of thing that will help get him convicted at trial.

[Rick Plant]

Conservative Karl Rove corrects Fox News host: 'None of these government documents are his'



Republican Karl Rove on Wednesday forced a Fox News host to face the fact that Donald Trump took documents that didn't belong to him.

Documents at former US president Donald Trump's Florida home were "likely concealed" to obstruct an FBI probe into his potential mishandling of classified materials, the Justice Department said in a court filing Tuesday.

Before the raid, the FBI uncovered "multiple sources of evidence" showing that "classified documents" remained at Mar-a-Lago, the filing says.

"The government also developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed... and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government's investigation," the filing adds.

Responding to the latest news, Fox News host Martha MacCallum cited Trump's talking point that the documents seized by the FBI were his and further claimed that he declassified what he took.

"The Trump side has their lawyers and their feelings about what was rightfully his and able to take," MacCallum said.

Rove interrupted: "Well, let's just be clear on this, none of these government documents are his to have taken. I agree with the deputy director, who said that a lot of the former president's problems are of his own creation. You can't — under the Presidential Records Act of 1978 you cannot take original documents with you when you leave the White House. When there is the president of the United States or any of his aides, you know — that's forbidden under the law."

He continued saying that there are no criminal penalties for violating the PRA, but Trump has caused more problems by potentially violating other laws outside of the PRA.

"But why the former president packed up 20 nearly 30 some-odd boxes of material when he had no right to do so," Rove continued. "And that's what the government asserts in this filing that he — the former president asked for the return of the documents because, as he said in his filing, they were created in his administration. And the response from the government was, that's evidence that they aren't his if they were developed in the White House during his time of presidency under the Presidential Records Act. They belong to the government and not to him!"

The DOJ filing responded to Trump's request last week for an independent party, or "special master," to screen files seized in the FBI raid for materials protected by personal privilege.

Naming a special master could potentially block investigators' access to the documents, especially if he or she accepts Trump's claims that most were privileged.

The filing argues that the court should not appoint a special master, "because those records do not belong to (Trump)."

The "appointment of a special master is unnecessary and would significantly harm important governmental interests, including national security interests," the filing adds.

Watch: https://twitter.com/i/status/1565061907203096576