The Great Document Heist

The National Archives found more than 150 sensitive documents when it got a first batch of material from the former president in January, helping to explain the Justice Department’s urgent response.

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In total, the government has recovered more than 300 documents with classified markings from Mr. Trump since he left office.

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The previously unreported volume of the sensitive material found in the former president’s possession in January helps explain why the Justice Department moved so urgently to hunt down any further classified materials he might have.

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The specific nature of the sensitive material that Mr. Trump took from the White House remains unclear. But the 15 boxes Mr. Trump turned over to the archives in January, nearly a year after he left office, included documents from the C.I.A., the National Security Agency and the F.B.I. spanning a variety of topics of national security interest.

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Trump went through the boxes himself in late 2021, according to multiple people briefed on his efforts, before turning them over.

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Aides to Mr. Trump turned over a few dozen additional sensitive documents during a visit to Mar-a-Lago by Justice Department officials in early June. At the conclusion of the search this month, officials left with 26 boxes, including 11 sets of material marked as classified, comprising scores of additional documents. One set had the highest level of classification, top secret/sensitive compartmented information.

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The Justice Department investigation is continuing, suggesting that officials are not certain whether they have recovered all the presidential records that Mr. Trump took with him from the White House.

  NYT

I think you can safely bet that they haven't.

[I]nvestigators have sought additional surveillance footage from the club.

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No documentation has come to light confirming that Mr. Trump declassified the material, and the potential crimes cited by the Justice Department in seeking the search warrant for Mar-a-Lago would not hinge on the classification status of the documents.

National Archives officials spent much of 2021 trying to get back material from Mr. Trump, after learning that roughly two dozen boxes of presidential records material had been lingering in the White House residence for several months.

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Among the items they knew were missing were Mr. Trump’s original letters from the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, and the note that President Barack Obama had left Mr. Trump before he left office.

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Trump [described] the boxes of documents as “mine,” according to three advisers familiar with his comments.

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In May, after conducting a series of witness interviews, the [DOJ] issued a subpoena for the return of remaining classified material.

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On June 3, Jay Bratt, the chief of the counterespionage section of the national security division of the Justice Department, went to Mar-a-Lago to meet with two of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Evan Corcoran and Christina Bobb, and retrieve any remaining classified material to satisfy the subpoena. Mr. Corcoran went through the boxes himself to identify classified material beforehand.

Seriously? Let's get Mr. Corcoran on the stand.

Mr. Corcoran showed Mr. Bratt the basement storage room where, he said, the remaining material had been kept.

Mr. Trump briefly came to see the investigators during the visit.

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Mr. Corcoran then drafted a statement, which Ms. Bobb, who is said to be the custodian of the documents, signed. It asserted that, to the best of her knowledge, all classified material that was there had been returned.

To the best of her knowledge. Of course, she did not have any knowledge other than what she was told by Corcoran/Trump.

[I]nvestigators, who were interviewing several people in Mr. Trump’s circle about the documents, came to believe that there were other presidential records that had not been turned over.

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On June 22, the Justice Department subpoenaed the Trump Organization for Mar-a-Lago’s security footage, which included a well-trafficked hallway outside the storage area.

Wait a minute. Well-trafficked?

Let's get Christina Bobb on the stand.

While much of the footage showed hours of club employees walking through the busy corridor, some of it raised concerns for investigators, according to people familiar with the matter. It revealed people moving boxes in and out, and in some cases, appearing to change the containers some documents were held in.

You mean like what they claimed happened at swing-state voting precincts in 2020?

In seeking a second round of security footage, the Justice Department wants to review tapes for the weeks leading up to the Aug. 8 search.

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[When subpoenaed on June 22, t]he club had surveillance footage going back 60 days for some areas of the property, stretching back to late April of this year.

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It remains to be seen whether anyone will face criminal charges stemming from the investigation.

I can see two attorneys at least who ought to be investigated.

The F.B.I. agents who conducted the search found the additional documents in the storage area in the basement of Mar-a-Lago, as well as in a container in a closet in Mr. Trump’s office.

Two distinct areas listed on the warrant, so they had to have had someone who knew of the existence of those two areas as searchable places. Most likely who knew for a certainty there were documents in both. I assume the feds are interviewing everyone who appeared on the security tapes moving boxes. Also, without a doubt, those would be the people (or person) listed on the affidavit in support of the search warrant that Trump is trying to get released.

On Monday, a federal magistrate [Bruce E. Reinhart] issued a formal order directing the Justice Department to send him under seal proposed redactions to the affidavit underlying the warrant used to search Mar-a-Lago by Thursday, accompanied by a memo explaining its justifications.

And of course, Judge Reinhart is under threat from MAGAheads for issuing the warrant in the first place. As are FBI agents for executing the warrant. MAGA is out of control and needs to be brought to heel.

BTW, have a look at the different slant Fox News puts on Judge Reinhart's decision regarding the affidavit from that of Yahoo News.

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

UPDATE:

UPDATE:

MAGA:  Make Attorneys Get Attorneys