About those documents

Two of Donald Trump’s employees moved boxes of papers the day before FBI agents and a prosecutor visited the former president’s Florida home to retrieve classified documents in response to a subpoena — timing that investigators have come to view as suspicious.

  WaPo

You think?

Trump and his aides also allegedly carried out a “dress rehearsal” for moving sensitive papers even before his office received the May 2022 subpoena.

Oh?

Prosecutors in addition have gathered evidence indicating that Trump at times kept classified documents in his office in a place where they were visible and sometimes showed them to others.

Of course he did. He's a consummate braggart.

John Irving, a lawyer representing one of the two employees who moved the boxes, said the worker did not know what was in them and was only trying to help Trump valet Walt Nauta, who was using a dolly or hand truck to move a number of boxes.

“He was seen on Mar-a-Lago security video helping Walt Nauta move boxes into a storage area on June 2, 2022. My client saw Mr. Nauta moving the boxes and volunteered to help him,” Irving said. The next day, he added, the employee helped Nauta pack an SUV “when former president Trump left for Bedminster for the summer.”

[...]

On the evening of June 2, the same day the two employees moved the boxes, a lawyer for Trump contacted the Justice Department and said officials there were welcome to visit Mar-a-Lago and pick up classified documents related to the subpoena. Bratt and the FBI agents arrived the following day.

[...]

Prosecutors also have gathered evidence that even before Trump’s office received the subpoena in May, he had what some officials have dubbed a “dress rehearsal” for moving government documents that he did not want to relinquish, people familiar with the investigation said.

Is it just me, or is that weird?

The term “dress rehearsal” [...] was used to describe an episode when Trump allegedly reviewed the contents of some, but not all, of the boxes containing classified material.

Not sure I'd call that a dress rehearsal, but merely his lazy ass got hungry for a cheeseburger, so they had to quit.

Prosecutors separately have been told by more than one witness that Trump at times kept classified documents out in the open in his Florida office, where others could see them, people familiar with the matter said, and sometimes showed them to people, including aides and visitors.

Depending on the strength of that evidence, such accounts could severely undercut claims by Trump or his lawyers that he did not know he possessed classified material. Grand jury activity in the case has slowed in recent weeks, and Trump’s attorneys have taken steps — including outlining his potential defense to members of Congress and seeking a meeting with the attorney general — that suggest they believe a charging decision is getting closer. The grand jury working on the investigation apparently has not met since May 5, after months of frenetic activity at the federal courthouse in Washington. That is the panel’s longest hiatus since December, shortly after Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith as special counsel to lead the probe.

A grand jury’s defining function is to indict. But for prosecutors, the grand jury also has an indispensable investigative function, issuing subpoenas and hearing testimony from any relevant and available witness the prosecution chooses to call. For Smith, it’s an opportunity to probe Trump’s anticipated defenses, lock in witnesses’ stories and pursue investigative avenues that might or might not pan out.

All these investigative functions dry up once a grand jury returns an indictment.

Through this prism, the purpose of Smith’s maneuvers becomes clear. He has gone beyond building his basic case to gather all the information he can before asking the grand jury to return an indictment and losing its investigative powers.

Hence this week’s New York Times report that Smith had served a subpoena for information about the Trump Organization’s business dealings in seven foreign countries. The subpoena appeared designed to get at the possibility that Trump used the classified documents to strike deals with foreign governments, which would be still another serious crime, but it reportedly produced no new information.

[...]

But the charges Smith is likely to bring don’t require any proof of motive, and they are grave regardless of what Trump did with the documents.

[...]

The same goes for reports that Smith sent agents to interview much of the housekeeping and maintenance staff at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. I doubt he was desperate to bolster his case with a nugget of information from an unlikely source; rather, I think he wants to leave no stone unturned while he’s still able to turn stones.

[...]

Records that the National Archives recently handed over to him apparently show that Trump’s advisors told him he could not simply declassify documents with a wave of his hand as he continues to ridiculously claim.

[...]

Smith has also reportedly obtained 50 pages of [Evan] Corcoran’s contemporaneous handwritten notes documenting not just the advice lawyers gave Trump but also the former president’s reactions, down to his hand gestures. The notes are likely to be more compelling evidence that Trump was clearly informed of his legal obligation to produce all the classified documents the government sought.

[...]

Trump’s lawyers fired off a letter Tuesday night seeking a meeting with U.S. Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland, typically the final arrow in the quiver of a defendant trying to stave off indictment.

  LA Times

Good luck with that.

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