Tuesday, August 16, 2022

Surely Trump can be charged

With obstruction, if nothing else.
Pat A. Cipollone and Patrick F. Philbin, the White House counsel and his deputy under President Donald J. Trump, were interviewed by the F.B.I. in connection with boxes of sensitive documents that were stored at Mr. Trump’s residence in Florida after he left office, three people familiar with the matter said.

[...]

Mr. Cipollone and Mr. Philbin were Mr. Trump’s representatives to deal with the National Archives; they were named to the positions shortly before the president’s term ended, in January 2021. At some point after National Archives officials realized they did not have Trump White House documents, which are required to be preserved under the Presidential Records Act, they contacted Mr. Philbin for help returning them.

[...]

Mr. Philbin tried to help the National Archives retrieve the material, two of the people familiar with the discussions said. But the former president repeatedly resisted entreaties from his advisers.

“It’s not theirs, it’s mine,” several advisers say Mr. Trump told them.

[...]

The former president returned 15 boxes of material to the National Archives in January, but the Justice Department issued a subpoena in May for documents that were still at his residence. On June 3, counterintelligence officials with the Justice Department’s national security division went to Mar-a-Lago to collect remaining documents with classified markings.

At that point, at least one Trump lawyer signed a statement saying material with the classified markings had been returned, according to four people familiar with the document. But officials then used a subpoena to obtain surveillance footage of the hallway outside a storage room at Mar-a-Lago and saw something that alarmed them. They also received information from at least one witness who indicated that more material might remain at the residence, people familiar with the investigation said.

  NYT
And you know Trump is on the hunt for whomever that might be.
The F.B.I. has reached out to about a half-dozen people who currently work for Mr. Trump and who might know what documents he may still have in his possession.
Knowing that loyalty only goes one way with Trump, I would advise them to cooperate with the Feds in this case.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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