Jack Smith's "receipts"

Trump attorney Jennifer Little has corroborated testimony by Trump attorney Evan Corcoran about Trump's understanding of the consequences of hiding classified documents from the DOJ, and added to it.

[W]ithin days of the Justice Department issuing a subpoena last year for all classified documents at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, she "very clearly" warned Trump that if he failed to fully comply -- but then swore he did -- "it's going to be a crime."

[...]

On May 23, 2022 -- 12 days after receiving the subpoena -- Little and Corcoran met with the former president at Mar-a-Lago. It was Corcoran's first time meeting Trump in person, and Little allegedly wanted to help ease Corcoran into his new role.

But, as sources described it to ABC News, Little told investigators she had a bigger purpose in going to that meeting: She wanted to explain to Trump that whatever happened before with the National Archives "just doesn't matter," especially because Trump never swore to them, under the penalty of perjury, that he had turned everything over, sources said. But whatever happens now has "a legal ramification," Little said she tried to emphasize to Trump, according to the sources.

[...]

[I]f there are any more classified documents, failing to return all of them moving forward will be "a problem," especially because the subpoena requires a signed certification swearing full compliance, the sources said.

"Once this is signed -- if anything else is located -- it's going to be a crime," sources quoted Little as recalling she told Trump.

The sources said that when investigators asked Little if those messages to Trump "landed," she responded: "Absolutely."

The former president said something to the effect of, "OK, I get it,'" the sources said she recalled to investigators.

  ABC

He just figured he was above the law.

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

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.

He's gonna lose big on this one

And he'll no doubt appeal to the Supreme Court. I don't think they'll hear it.

Federal prosecutors have evidence Donald Trump was put on notice that he could not retain any classified documents after he was subpoenaed for their return last year, as they examine whether the subsequent failure to fully comply with the subpoena was a deliberate act of obstruction by the former president.

The previously unreported warning conveyed to Trump by his lawyer Evan Corcoran could be significant in the criminal investigation surrounding Trump’s handling of classified materials given it shows he knew about his subpoena obligations.

[...]

The federal investigation led by special counsel Jack Smith has recently focused on why the subpoena was not compiled with, notably whether Trump arranged for boxes of classified documents to be moved out of the storage room so he could illegally retain them.

In particular, prosecutors have fixated on Trump’s valet Walt Nauta, after he told the justice department that Trump told him to move boxes out of the storage room before and after the subpoena. The activity was captured on subpoenaed surveillance footage, though there were gaps in the tapes.

  The Guardian

Who is Trump's Rose Mary Woods?

To resolve the issue about the gaps in the surveillance footage, the special counsel most recently subpoenaed Matthew Calamari Sr, the Trump Organization’s security chief who became its chief operating officer, and his son Matthew Calamari Jr, the director of corporate security.

Both Calamaris testified to the grand jury earlier this month, the Guardian previously reported, and were questioned in part on a text message that Nauta had sent asking Calamari Sr to call him back about the justice department’s request for the tapes last year.

[...]

The warning was one of several key moments that Corcoran preserved in roughly 50 pages of contemporaneous notes.

One of Trump's wiser attorneys.

The notes revealed how Trump and Nauta had unusually detailed knowledge of the botched subpoena response, including where Corcoran intended to search and not search for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, as well as when Corcoran was actually doing his search.

[...]

The justice department interviewed Nauta several times last year until prosecutors grew concerned that he failed to provide them with a complete and accurate account of his role in moving boxes that contained classified documents, according to two people familiar with the situation.

To force his cooperation, prosecutors threatened to charge him with lying to the FBI after he gave differing accounts over several interviews. But that incensed Nauta’s lawyer, who told the justice department his client would not talk again unless he was charged or offered an immunity deal.

After losing Nauta, investigators have turned to other witnesses who could shed light on his role.

[...]

Although ordinarily off limits to prosecutors, the notes ended up before the grand jury in Washington hearing evidence in the case after a US appeals court allowed attorney-client privilege to be pierced because judges believed Trump might have used Corcoran’s legal advice in furtherance of a crime.

There is no executive privilege for committing crimes.

The notes also suggested to prosecutors that there were times when the storage room might have been left unattended while the search for classified documents was ongoing, one of the people said, such as when Corcoran needed to take a break and walked out to the pool area nearby.

I'm going out for 20 minutes, and the door's not locked. Hint, hint.

In addition to his exchange with Trump, Corcoran described Trump’s facial expressions and reactions whenever they discussed the subpoena. The unusually detailed nature of his notes is said to have irritated Trump, who only learned about them after the notes themselves were subpoenaed.

Yes, I believe we've heard before how Trump didn't like his attorneys taking notes. 

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

Closing in

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the Department of Justice Tuesday in ordering testimony from former chief of staff Mark Meadows and other top Trump White House staffers in the DOJ’s Jan. 6 investigation.

A sealed Tuesday order denying an emergency motion from former President Trump’s team came after a flurry of late night activity in the case.

Trump had appealed a sealed decision from then-D.C. District Court Judge Beryl Howell last week that rejected his claims of executive privilege over the officials, ordering them to testify.

[...]

This is the Trump team’s second loss before the court, after a different three-judge panel there sided with DOJ in a dispute over whether the former president’s attorney in the Mar-a-Lago probe, Evan Corcoran, could be ordered to cooperate in that investigation.

  The Hill

Confusing Corcoran decision: testify while appeal is ongoing

It's hard to keep track, but that's the case involving Trump's refusal to return classified documents.

A federal judge ruled Corcoran's claims of attorney-client privilege over certain topics were invalid and compelled the lawyer to answer questions about aspects of his work with Trump and turn over evidence to investigators based on the "crime-fraud exception." On Wednesday, an appeals court rejected the Trump team's request that Corcoran's testimony be put on hold to allow for further litigation. The appeal is still ongoing, however, and a briefing schedule stretches into the spring, but in the meantime, the court ruled Trump's attorney would have to comply with a federal subpoena and sit before the grand jury on Friday.

  CBS

Interesting.

Corcoran's appearance in a Washington, D.C., federal court comes one day after another attorney for the former president, Tim Parlatore, confirmed he testified before a grand jury in December as part of the special counsel's documents probe. He answered questions about the Trump team's search for more government records at Trump properties across the county that yielded a handful of additional documents.

"I voluntarily and happily chose to go into the grand jury so that I could present my client's case to them in the context of our search efforts," Parlatore said in a statement, "During my testimony, it was clear that the government was not acting appropriately and made several improper attempts to pierce privilege and, in my opinion, made several significant misstatements to the jury which I believe constitutes prosecutorial misconduct."

[...]

On Thursday, attorneys for the former president and an attorney for former Vice President Mike Pence tried to convince D.C. District Chief Judge James Boasberg that Pence should not have to comply with a subpoena to testify in Smith's Jan. 6 investigation.

[...]

It is unclear when Boasberg will rule on the Pence matter and the former vice president has said he could take the matter all the way to the Supreme Court.

Also happening today...

Former president Donald Trump warned early Friday of “potential death & destruction” if he is charged in Manhattan in a criminal case related to alleged hush-money payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels to conceal an affair.

[...]

Trump wrote: “What kind of person can charge another person, in this case a former President of the United States, who got more votes than any sitting President in history, and leading candidate (by far!) for the Republican Party nomination, with a Crime, when it is known by all that NO Crime has been committed, & also known that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country?”

  WaPo

What the hell? I thought he wanted to be arrested so he could pose for the cameras.

Trump resumed commentary on the case on Truth Social about eight hours after his overnight post.

“PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT!” he wrote in all caps shortly after 9 a.m. Eastern.

Trump will have another opportunity to criticize Bragg and other state and federal prosecutors investigating his conduct on Saturday when he appears at a rally scheduled in Waco, Tex.

I wonder why he chose Waco.

Nearly 30 years ago, a lengthy standoff between a religious cult and federal agents ended on April 19, 1993, when the group’s compound near the city was destroyed in a fire. Nearly 80 people were killed.

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

Freaking out

Donald Trump has told advisers that he wants to be handcuffed when he makes an appearance in court, if he is indicted by a Manhattan grand jury.

  Guardian

A lot of people would like that.

The former president has reasoned that since he would need to go to the courthouse and surrender himself to authorities for fingerprinting and a mug shot anyway, the sources said, he might as well turn everything into a “spectacle”.

Somehow, he will.

But above all, people close to Trump said, he was deeply anxious that any special arrangements – like making his first court appearance by video link or skulking into the courthouse – would make him look weak or like a loser.

He IS a loser. And he IS weak.

Trump’s legal team in the hush money case has recoiled at the idea of him going in person and recommended that Trump allow them to quietly turn himself in next week and schedule a remote appearance, even citing guidance from his Secret Service detail about potential security concerns.

But Trump has rejected that approach and told various allies over the weekend that he didn’t care if someone shot him – he would become “a martyr”. He later added that if he got shot, he would probably win the presidency in 2024, the sources said.

He sounds depressed, in addition to crazy. I assume he's just freaking out.

Trump’s advisers have also been unsure whether he actually grasps the enormity of what an indictment might mean for him legally, in part because he has appeared disconnected at times from the recent flurry of activity in New York as the investigation has wrapped up.

I think their best defense would be to admit he's mentally incompetent. But I'm sure he wouldn't allow that.

In recent days, Trump has generally weighed his predicament only in between lunches and dinners at Mar-a-Lago and playing his usual rounds of golf at his resort in Palm Beach, the sources said.

When he eventually gets settled on strategizing his response to the hush money case, the sources said, he has been more focused on how he can project an image of defiance against the prosecution and that he is unfazed by being slapped with criminal charges that could turn out to rise to a felony.

He lives in his own imagined world. The madness of King George comes to mind.

It remains unclear what charges the district attorney might seek against Trump, though some members of his legal team believe the most likely scenario involves a base charge of falsifying business records coupled with potential tax fraud because Trump would not have paid tax on the payments.

We're all waiting.

Donald Trump may be preparing to become the first US president to be criminally indicted but should his perp walk for paying hush money to a porn star come to pass – perhaps granting his reported wish to be seen handcuffed – he will not be the first president ever arrested.

In 1872, President Ulysses S Grant was nicked for speeding in his horse-drawn carriage.

  Guardian

As Jack Smith collects evidence, Trump may be focused on Alvin Bragg to avoid the reality of what awaits him in the federal case(s).

Former President Donald Trump lashed out at ABC News on Tuesday over what he said was a "fake" report that he "deliberately misled" his attorneys about his handling of the classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago home last year.

"Shame on Fake News ABC for broadcasting ILLEGALLY LEAKED false allegations from a Never Trump, now former chief judge, against the Trump legal team. This disinformation is on par with their breathless Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, and ‘no-collusion’ Mueller speculation, all of which were totally disproven," Trump said in a statement shared on Twitter by spokesperson Liz Harrington.

[...]

ABC's Tuesday report said that sources told the outlet that a former federal judge wrote last week in a sealed filing that prosecutors presented "compelling preliminary evidence" that Trump "knowingly and deliberately misled his own attorneys about his retention of classified materials after leaving office."

[...]

The report said that Howell found prosecutors sufficiently showed Trump "intentionally concealed" the existence of classified documents from his lawyer, Evan Corcoran, and put him "in an unwitting position to deceive the government."

  MSN

I'd say that means Corcoran didn't cover for Trump when he went before the Grand Jury.

It also said that Howell agreed prosecutors sufficiently showed Trump committed crimes, but that they "would still need to meet a higher standard of evidence in order to seek charges against Trump, and more still to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt."

From former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti:

Continue reading.

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

This:

Stands to reason Corcoran wouldn't try to cover for Trump if he has to produce evidence like this.

UPDATE 10:52 am:

Panic time in Trump legal world.

This is particularly interesting because there's a new judge involved: James Boasberg rotated in on Monday.  Looks like the appeals court doesn't want to fuck around with this.  Boasberg must be ruing his luck about now.

UPDATE 03:43 pm:

An appeals court in Washington, D.C., has ruled against an attorney for former President Donald Trump, ordering him to comply with a federal grand jury subpoena to testify and provide information about his communications with Trump in its investigation into possible mishandling of documents with classified markings found at his Mar-a-Lago residence.

Trump's legal team could appeal the ruling to the entire D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

  CBS

I think you can bet on it.

UPDATE 04:56 pm:  I wonder who told her that and why they think it's unlikely.

UPDATE 03/23/2023:  Interesting that everyone who "should be removed immediately" is involved in a case against Trump.

Since he hasn't been held responsible for his incitement acts around January 6, he's going to continue inciting.

UPDATE 03/24/2023:  Corcoran has testified to the Grand Jury even though an appeal is ongoing.  

Trump lawyer loses attorney-client privilege plea

Evan Corcoran was one of the attorneys who falsely declared all of the government documents Trump held illegally had been returned. Smith's team want Corcoran to testify about a June 24, 2022, phone call with Trump.  I assume they want to know if Trump asked Corcoran to lie.

In a monumental ruling Friday, a federal judge ordered Donald Trump attorney Evan Corcoran to provide additional testimony as part of an investigation into the former president’s handling of classified documents, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

[...]

District Judge Beryl Howell said in an order under seal that Justice Department prosecutors have met the threshold for the crime-fraud exception for Corcoran, the source said.

  CNN

Meaning, there's a Trump crime.

The scope of what DOJ will be allowed to ask, however, was not immediately clear. Trump’s team is expected to appeal and ask for the judge’s order to be stayed while legal proceedings play out.

[...]

Corcoran, an attorney-turned-witness, had previously testified to the grand jury but declined to answer some questions, citing attorney-client privilege. The department argued to the judge he should not be able to avoid answering, because his discussions with the former president may have been part of an attempt to plan a crime.

Today was Howell's last day on the case, and I bet she's not unhappy to be rid of the nightmare. Judge James Boasberg rotates onto the DC Grand Jury bench.

UPDATE 06:51 pm:

Let's hope he's nothing like Kavanaugh.

UPDATE 03/24/2023:  Corcoran has testified to the Grand Jury even though an appeal is ongoing.  

Trump and the FBI

The way conservatives tell it, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is a hive of anti-Trump villainy, filled with agents looking for any excuse to hound the former president with investigative witch hunts. But the thing to understand about Donald Trump’s legal troubles is that they exist not because federal agents are out to get him, but despite the fact that the FBI is full of Trump supporters who would really like to leave him alone.

  The Atlantic

The reason that's a surprise is because Trump talks that "hive of villainy" shit about the FBI.  

FBI investigators clashed with federal prosecutors over the decision to search the former president’s residence, where highly classified documents were found despite Trump’s insistence that he had none.

“Some of those field agents wanted to shutter the criminal investigation altogether in early June,” the Post reported, adding that FBI agents were “simply afraid” and “worried taking aggressive steps investigating Trump could blemish or even end their careers.”

I've always heard that the New York office of the FBI is full of MAGA supporters. I don't have any proof, of course, but it does seem likely since law enforcement people tend toward conservative politics.

A simple but obvious fact has been lost over the past few years, amid Trump’s direct attacks on the FBI, and liberal defenses of the FBI against those attacks: FBI agents are cops.

[...]

As one agent told the reporter Spencer Ackerman in 2016, “The FBI is Trumpland.”

[...]

There are liberal and moderate cops, but they are not close to comprising a majority. Simply put, the FBI is full of people who would prefer not to investigate Donald Trump. He remains under federal investigation only because of his own inability to stop criming.

[...]

The FBI did not exhibit this worry in 2016, when it publicly announced that it was reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified documents, an announcement that, even with all the other mistakes her campaign made, likely cost Clinton the election. That decision was made in part because then-Director James Comey feared that pro-Trump FBI agents would leak the details if The federal investigation into the Trump campaign, by contrast, was properly kept confidential until after the election. he did not announce them publicly.

[...]

The irony of all Trump’s legal problems, however, is that the FBI desperately wants to leave him alone—if only he would let them.

Months of disputes between Justice Department prosecutors and FBI agents over how best to try to recover classified documents from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club and residence led to a tense showdown near the end of July last year.

[...]

Prosecutors argued that new evidence suggested Trump was knowingly concealing secret documents at his Palm Beach, Fla., home and urged the FBI to conduct a surprise raid at the property. But two senior FBI officials who would be in charge of leading the search resisted the plan as too combative and proposed instead to seek Trump’s permission to search his property.

[...]

Prosecutors ultimately prevailed in that dispute.

[...]

Starting in May, FBI agents in the Washington field office had sought to slow the probe, urging caution given its extraordinary sensitivity.

[...]

Some of those field agents wanted to shutter the criminal investigation altogether in early June, after Trump’s legal team asserted a diligent search had been conducted and all classified records had been turned over.

[...]

The idea of closing the probe was not something that was discussed or considered by FBI leadership and would not have been approved.

[...]

On one side, federal prosecutors in the department’s national security division advocated aggressive ways to secure some of the country’s most closely guarded secrets, which they feared Trump was intentionally hiding at Mar-a-Lago; on the other, FBI agents in the Washington field office urged more caution with such a high-profile matter, recommending they take a cooperative rather than confrontational approach.

[...]

The disagreements stemmed in large part from worries among officials that whatever steps they took in investigating a former president would face intense scrutiny and second-guessing by people inside and outside the government.

  WaPo

Snowflakes.

The FBI agents’ caution also was rooted in the fact that mistakes in prior probes of Hillary Clinton and Trump had proved damaging to the FBI, and the cases subjected the bureau to sustained public attacks from partisans.

[...]

Prosecutors countered that the FBI failing to treat Trump as it had other government employees who were not truthful about classified records could threaten the nation’s security.

[...]

Prosecutors in the Justice Department’s national security division needed to answer two immediate questions: Was national security damaged by classified records being kept at Trump’s Florida club, and were any more sensitive records still in Trump’s possession?

[...]

Prosecutors and FBI agents were set on a collision course in April, when Trump through his lawyers tried to block the FBI from reviewing the classified records the Archives found. That set off alarm bells for prosecutors because it signaled he might be seeking to hide something.

And I don't expect we'll ever know whether that was true, but it sure seems the most likely conclusion.

Had the criminal investigation been closed in June, as some FBI field agents discussed, legal experts said it’s unlikely agents would have yet recovered the items found in the FBI’s raid of Trump’s residence.

The article describes a "heated" meeting during which prosecutors and FBI officials argued about whether a "raid" on Mar-A-Lago was warranted. FBI officials wanted to consult with Trump's lawyer, Evan Corcoran, to arrange a consensual search. Prosecutors believed Trump could not be trusted, and notifying his attorney could lead to him further hiding - or using - national secrets.  

Evan Corcoran was the one who instructed flunky attorney Christina Bobb to sign the document saying everything was turned over rather than signing it himself.  I don't know about you, but that seems a little suspicious to me.

Prosecutors remained somewhat on guard until the day of the raid, as they continued to hear rumblings of dissent from the Washington field office, according to three people familiar with the case. Some of the people said prosecutors heard some FBI agents wanted to call Corcoran once they arrived at Mar-a-Lago and wait for him to fly down to join them in the search; prosecutors said that would not work.

[...]

Just days before the scheduled search, prosecutors got a request from FBI headquarters to put off the search for another day, according to people familiar with the matter. The FBI told prosecutors the bureau planned to announce big news that week — charges against an Iranian for plotting to assassinate former national security adviser John Bolton — and did not want the impact of that case to be overshadowed or complicated by media coverage of the Mar-a-Lago raid. It is common for the Justice Department and FBI to fine-tune the timing of certain actions or announcements to avoid one law enforcement priority competing with another. But prosecutors, fatigued by months of fighting with agents in the FBI’s field office, wanted no delay, no matter the reason.

"Big news" that someone plotted to assassinate John Bolton. Right. THAT couldn't wait.

FBI agents found ways to make the search less confrontational than it otherwise could have been, according to people familiar with the investigation: The search would take place when Trump was in New York and not in Palm Beach; the Secret Service would receive a heads-up a few hours before FBI agents arrived to avoid any law enforcement conflict; and agents would wear white polo shirts and khakis to cut a lower profile than if they wore their traditional blue jackets with FBI insignia.

[...]

Some [of the more than 100 recovered] documents were classified at such a restricted level that seasoned national security investigators lacked the proper authorization to look at them, leading to consternation on the prosecution team. They involved highly restricted “special access programs” that require Cabinet-level sign-off even for officials with top-secret clearances to review. The documents described Iran’s missile program and records related to highly sensitive intelligence aimed at China.

Remember, Trump's lawyer had already certified that all such documents had been returned (without signing the cert himself). Also, the other disturbing fact is that the Trump family ever had access to these national security secrets in the first place. They now have either personal knowledge of them, or possibly even copies, to say nothing of information they may have already sold or disseminated.

It's possible Trump only knew of things in his possession that he wanted to keep for bragging or blackmailing rights, and the rest were things that were inadvertently carelessly handled. But that seems much less likely when we learn that an aide working for Trump's Save America PAC still had some classified documents on a thumb drive and computer. No telling where THOSE got to.

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

UPDATE 07:09 am:

MAGA: Make Attorneys Get Attorneys

Trump attorneys Christina Bobb and Evan Corcoran affirmed to the Justice Department that Trump had handed over all classified records from his Mar-a-Lago residence in response to a May subpoena. But prosecutors said their response was "incomplete" after the FBI searched and found more documents at Mar-a-Lago and cited evidence of "obstructive conduct" in response to the subpoena.

[...]

Bobb signed a document affirming that Trump handed over "all documents that are responsive to the subpoena" after a "diligent search." Corcoran then met with DOJ officials and made a similar statement. Investigators ultimately found more evidence that there were additional documents at Mar-a-Lago and secured a warrant to search the premises in August.

[...]

[Bobb] told the pro-Trump Right Side Broadcasting Network that she was not acting as Trump's attorney while serving as a custodian of records when responding to the subpoena, according to the report, meaning that the DOJ could compel her testimony more easily than if she were acting as Trump's lawyer at the time.

[...]

Bobb has since hired her own lawyer, Florida-based former prosecutor John Lauro, and "made it known to Trump allies that she is willing to cooperate and be interviewed by the Justice Department," according to the Post. And colleagues have similarly urged Corcoran to hire a criminal defense lawyer because of his response to the subpoena, according to the report, but he has insisted it is not necessary.

  Salon

Let's see how long he holds out.

And in what capacity was Bobb acting if not his attorney?

"I think people were a little bit confused," Bobb said. "I am on President Trump's legal team. I do work for him on election issues. I was never on the legal team handling this case, just to be clear on that. Which is why I came in as the custodian of records — because I wasn't on that team."

I think I can see why people would be "a little bit confused."

With his own attorneys facing potential legal jeopardy, Trump struggled to find an elite attorney willing to represent him in the case. Trump ultimately hired former Florida Solicitor General Chris Kise, who once represented a member of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro's administration, paying him a $3 million retainer from money donated to his super PAC.

Of course. Trump is not going to pay his own bills.

Kise warned Trump's team that attacks were only likely to make the DOJ more aggressive and urged them to seek an "off-ramp" before a possible indictment, according to the report. He also argued that Trump's other lawyers, whom he said lacked experience with this type of case, had "deepened Trump's problems" and "could face legal trouble themselves."

[...]

Just weeks after joining Trump's legal team, CNN reported that he has already been sidelined. Though his name appeared on numerous court filings, he did not sign onto the Trump team's combative filing questioning the DOJ's motives last week. The Post reported that Kise is now unlikely to play a public role in the Mar-a-Lago case, though he will continue to help Trump deal with "his other legal problems."

Had he not realized that Trump doesn't take his lawyers' advice unless it's what he wants it to be? I mean, he just got that experience himself.

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

UPDATE: