Mar-a-Lago raid

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We now know the FBI search of Trump’s estate was premised on an investigation of three potential offenses.  One of those possible charges had been widely predicted: it pertains to the concealment or removal of official documents. Another covers the destruction, alteration or concealment of records “with the intent to impede, obstruct or influence” an investigation — an intriguing charge given the number of other probes directed at Trump.  The biggest shock came with the inclusion of a third possible offense under section 793 of Title 18 of the U.S. Criminal Code. The language of the statute is complicated, but its main thrust is that it is a criminal offense for someone to misuse, mishandle or fail to guard national security information that they believe “could be to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation.”

The Memo: What the latest dramatic twists mean in the Trump-FBI saga | The Hill

The FBI recovered 11 sets of classified documents while conducting the search of former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.  The Journal reviewed a three-page list of items that FBI agents took from the Palm Beach, Fla., property on Monday, revealing that they took about 20 boxes of items, binders of photos, a handwritten note and Trump’s grant of clemency to his former adviser Roger Stone, who was convicted in 2019 of lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstruction of an official proceeding.  The list refers to one set of documents as “Various classified/TS/SCI documents,” meaning top secret/sensitive compartmentalized information. It states that FBI agents acquired four sets of top-secret documents, three sets of secret documents and three sets of confidential documents.

FBI recovered 11 sets of classified documents in Trump search: report | The Hill

• Three possible crimes
  
• 11 sets of classified documents found
  
• SCI documents can only be read in a special vault, they have no business being at Mar-o-lago
  

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The National Archives recovered at least 15 boxes of presidential records earlier this year; federal law requires presidential administrations to turn over their records to the National Archives. A tipster reportedly told the federal government that not all important documents had been recovered. The FBI reportedly visited Mar-a-Lago in June and told Trump to better secure the remaining items; a subpoena was also issued after that visit in an attempt to recover them.

Read the warrant for the FBI’s search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home for potential Espionage Act violations - Vox

The Espionage Act is actually a series of statutes under 18 US Code Chapter 37 related to the collection, retention, or dissemination of national defense or classified information. The Mar-a-Lago search warrant referred to Section 793 — “Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information,” which doesn’t just cover “spying” in the sense that many think of when they hear the term. Section 793 specifically states that people legally granted access to national defense documents — people like the former president — are subject to punishment should they improperly retain that information.

Under the Presidential Records Act, which relates to the retention of government documents by the National Archives and Records Administration, or NARA, official documents and other material or information a president and vice president may have obtained while in the office must go to NARA for preservation.

The Presidential Records Act is a post-Watergate innovation which “changed the legal ownership of the official records of the President from private to public, and established a new statutory structure under which Presidents, and subsequently NARA, must manage the records of their Administrations,”  according to the NARA website. Under that statute, presidential records belong to the national archivist — and therefore the American people — when a president leaves office, unless that person has the permission of the archivist to dispose of records that are no longer useful.

The DOJ’s Espionage Act investigation into Trump, explained - Vox

• Specifying in detail what laws Trump likely violated, the documents don't belong to him
  

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On Friday, Trump kept at it on Truth Social saying "President Barack Hussein Obama kept 33 million pages of documents, much of them classified. How many of them pertained to nuclear? Word is, lots!" Producing evidence proving Trump's accusations to be false, The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration show that Obama did no such thing. \u201c.@USNatArchives responds to Trump\u2019s unsubstantial statement:\u201d — Jacqueline Alemany (@Jacqueline Alemany) 1660327259 According to the National Archives, after Obama left the White House they "moved approximately 30 million pages of unclassified records to a NARA facility in the Chicago area, where they are maintained exclusively by NARA." They also point out that Obama, same as any other president following correct procedure, has "no control over where and how NARA stores the Presidential records of his Administration."

National Archives corrects the record after Trump accuses Obama of mishandling documents - Alternet.org

• No, Obama didn't steal documents like Trump..
  
• And in the article below a catalogue of Republican smoke and excuses
  

Republicans have come up with a truly dizzying number of excuses and smokescreens trying to cover up his wrongdoing—often several each day. Honestly, it’s been somewhat hard to keep track of them all, especially as many contradict one another, but we’re here to help. Below, please find our day-by-day catalog of every b.s. pretext Trump’s defenders have tossed out there.

Here’s the complete guide to every excuse Republicans have made for Trump’s theft of classified documents - Alternet.org

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Former President Trump on Monday said his aides have reached out to the Department of Justice (DOJ) to offer “whatever we can do to help,” saying the “temperature has to be brought down” after a spike in threats against law enforcement following the FBI’s search of his Mar-a-Lago estate. “Whatever we can do to help — because the temperature has to be brought down in the country,” Trump told Fox News. “If it isn’t, terrible things are going to happen.”  At the same time that he talked about taking the temperature down, however, Trump repeated attacks on the FBI over the search for classified documents that took place at his Florida estate last week.

Trump says temperature ‘has to be brought down’ after FBI search, then repeats attacks | The Hill

• Taking the temperature down by throwing all kinds of nonsense around?
  
• And he can't get his story right, throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks:
  

Former President Trump has shifted his defenses for taking classified documents to his Mar-a-Lago residence in the wake of the FBI search of the estate last week, when agents seized 33 items including nearly a dozen sets of classified items. Trump has ripped the FBI and Department of Justice while giving varying explanations for why he did nothing wrong.

Here are Trump’s shifting defenses for taking classified documents to Mar-a-Lago | The Hill

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The warrant is based upon probable cause to believe, first, that taking large quantities of materials to Mar-a-Lago violated the core federal criminal document preservation statute related to presidential records. It forbids the willful concealment, removal, or destruction of documents -- classified or not -- belonging to the government of the United States. The maximum penalty is three years' imprisonment.

More serious still is the possible violation of the federal Espionage Act, also listed on the warrant. Its violation carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. Individuals are subject to conviction under the act if they willfully retain and fail to deliver information "relating to the national defense" upon the demand of a federal officer entitled to receive such information that has come into the individuals' possession. This statute comes into play because the FBI retrieved 11 sets of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago last Monday. Information is marked "secret" if its unauthorized release would cause "serious damage to national security." Information that would cause "exceptionally grave damage to national security" is marked "top secret." If information is marked "TS/SCI," it is even more highly protected -- "top secret/sensitive compartmented information," meaning that it comes from sensitive sources or methods. In short, while all the material recovered could be considered stolen government property, the classified documents that the FBI retrieved and that were marked "top secret" and "various classified/TS/SCI" are of special concern. Although the Espionage Act does not require that "information related to the national defense" be classified, these highly sensitive documents would likely fall under the definition of "information relating to the national defense" under the Espionage Act.

Finally, there is the offense of obstructing a pending federal investigation by concealing documents relating to that investigation. It carries the heaviest potential penalty: up to 20 years in prison. As grave as violations of the first two statutes are, interfering with a Justice Department investigation is especially serious...

Reporting has already detailed the concerning pattern of document turnover. It started with negotiations and voluntary requests from national archivists in 2021, resulting in the return of 15 boxes of materials in 2022. That was followed in the spring by a grand jury subpoena evidently compelling production of documents. Then investigators visited in June, taking still more documents with them and at some later point securing the recently reported, evidently false statement that all material marked as classified had been returned...

Note that if Trump or others did not honestly comply with the subpoena, that's a separate possible crime. That might be why the department reportedly subpoenaed the surveillance footage of people going in and out of the document rooms. Government officials were also understandably concerned about who had access to classified documents.

Further, if Trump and those around him, including his lawyers, made intentionally inaccurate statements to the government, they may be criminally liable for making false statements.

Opinion: Trump is worried after FBI search -- and he should be - CNN

• The three possible crimes
  
• Remember, A Trump lawyer argued a couple of months ago that all classified documents were returned
  

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According to reporting from Rolling Stone, the FBI has thus far been conducting voluntary interviews with those who could have knowledge of such an order, including former staff on the National Security Council. Shortly after the warrant was executed, Trump claimed the documents removed from his home were “all declassified.” He later elaborated in a statement to Fox News that he had “a standing order” to declassify any documents. “If the DOJ was really focused on recovering the classified material and was not criminally investigating the former president, they would not be calling in former NSC officials to question them about Trump’s supposed “standing order” declassifying documents,” Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor, wrote on Twitter.  

National security law experts who previously spoke with The Hill noted that while Trump would have broad powers as president to declassify documents, such a practice is usually done on a  case-by-case basis, and also triggers notification to other agencies that hold classified information, so that they can reclassify them appropriately in their own system. “Realistically, no one actually believes that Trump had such an order.  It was not written down anywhere, doesn’t make a lot of sense (as some of his own appointees have pointed out), and was never raised by Trump’s lawyers during their communications with DOJ,” Mariotti continued. .

Five things we learned this week about the FBI search of Trump’s home | The Hill

• No record of any standing order for declassifying the documents exists, it would be highly unusual and once again, Trump's lawyers say something different in court than Trump says outside it.
  
• And it doesn't actually matter whether the documents were declassified or not, they had to be returned as they are property of the Presidency, not Trump and he was subpoenaed to return them and failed to do so. 
  

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Ted Cruz has claimed that the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago was a “fishing expedition” for incriminating documents related to the US Capitol riots. Without offering any evidence, Mr Cruz asserted the 8 August raid on Donald Trump’s Florida residence was part of a secret plan by the Department of Justice to gather evidence on the January 6 insurrection. “What is really distressing now looking at the warrant and what they were searching for, this was a fishing expedition,” Mr Cruz said on his podcast Verdict with Ted Cruz.

Ted Cruz says FBI raid on Trump home was secret ‘fishing expedition’ to gather information about Jan 6 riot

• In their post-truth created world, they can just say anything without any evidence..
  

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Former President Trump reportedly held on to more than 300 classified documents after leaving office, half of which were recovered in January by the National Archives, which alerted the Justice Department in what eventually led to the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago property. The New York Times reported Monday, citing multiple sources who have been briefed on the matter, that the sheer volume of classified-marked material recovered by the government is what triggered a federal criminal investigation into the former president.

The National Archives in January recovered 150 classified documents, while another set, which was also at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, was given to the Justice Department in June by Trump aides. Additional classified documents were recovered in the FBI search earlier this month, totaling more than 300 such documents in all, according to the Times. The 15 boxes turned over to the National Archives earlier this year included CIA, FBI and National Security Agency documents involving national security, according to a person briefed, the Times reported.
Three days after the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, The Washington Post reported that some of the documents recovered in that search were related to nuclear weapons..

Trump held more than 300 classified documents after leaving White House: report | The Hill

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The motion submitted on Monday by the former president’s lawyers argued that a court should appoint a so-called special master to separate out and determine what materials the justice department can review as evidence due to privilege issues. But the argument from Trump that some of the documents are subject to executive privilege protections indicates that those documents are official records that he is not authorized to keep and should have turned over to the National Archives at the end of the administration. The motion, in that regard, appeared to concede that Trump violated one of the criminal statutes listed on the warrant used by the FBI to search the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort – 18 USC 2071 – concerning the unlawful removal of government records. “If he’s acknowledging that he’s in possession of documents that would have any colorable claim of executive privilege, those are by definition presidential records and belong at the National Archives,” said Asha Rangappa, a former FBI agent and former associate dean at Yale Law School. “And so it’s not clear that executive privilege would even be relevant to the particular crime he’s being investigated for and yet in this filing, he basically admits that he is in possession of them, which is what the government is trying to establish,” Rangappa said... But Trump’s motion could throw up additional challenges for the former president, with additional passages in the filing laying out a months-long battle by the justice department to recover certain records in a pattern of interactions that could be construed as obstruction of justice.

Trump appears to concede he illegally retained official documents in filing | Donald Trump | The Guardian

• Admitting he had the documents in possession
  
• Multiple communications with the DoJ shows he was aware of them and yet not giving many documents back, which is obstruction of justice.
  

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A letter released by the National Archives on Tuesday indicates that an initial batch of 15 boxes of documents taken from Mar-a-Lago in January included 100 classified documents totaling 700 pages. And reporting from The New York Times late Monday indicates that the government has recovered at least 300 classified documents from Trump since he left office. Both offer insight into the volume of documents Trump took with him as he left office. 

But the letter from the National Archives also shows the resistance Trump’s team had to any members of the intelligence community reviewing the documents so they could begin to assess whether there was damage done to any national security partners or methods.  “The volume of the documents and the length of the dispute, I think, makes the case stronger for the government that Donald Trump’s retention of these documents was willful,” said Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney, noting that the charges being weighed by the government require showing intent.

“When you have 300 of them, and you retain them for over a year after repeated requests, and they come down a few times, and you still have them — it seems that the case has become much stronger. And I think it becomes much more difficult for the Justice Department to simply say, ‘We’ve got documents back. We’re going to declare victory and go home,’” she added. “And charging him is not an easy decision. But man, at some point, how do you decline to charge him when his conduct has been so egregious?”

Trump defiance of DOJ on classified docs comes into sharper focus | The Hill

• There were far more documents at Mar-a-lago than previously thought
  
• There were multiple communications, several visits, and two subpoenas as efforts to retrieve them, and still, many documents were found.
  
• Difficult to maintain Trump's innocense..