Mar-a-Lago raid

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The Washington Post revealed in a Wednesday report that what the witness told law enforcement is corroborated by the security-camera footage. The footage also shows Trump's actions after he was given a government subpoena and told to hand over the documents. At that time, Trump gave the FBI nothing more than an envelope with a few things included. Trump was caught on camera. "The people familiar with the investigation said agents have gathered witness accounts indicating that, after Trump advisers received a subpoena in May for any classified documents that remained at Mar-a-Lago, Trump told people to move boxes to his residence at the property," said the Post. "That description of events was corroborated by the security-camera footage, which showed people moving the boxes, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation."

Trump employee warned FBI that former president had ordered Mar-a-Lago documents to be moved: report - Raw Story - Celebrating 18 Years of Independent Journalism

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Indicted!

• If you or I had done what Trump has, we would have long been indicted.
  
• This is no witch hunt, most of the sources are Trump people, his employees, or lawyers (who therefore cannot function as lawyers).
  
• 7 different(!) indictments, one of which relates to the Espionage Act.
  
• Recording where Trump admits he kept a classified Pentagon document about a possible attack on Iran after leaving the White House, and showing this to people without any security clearing just to show off and prove a personal point that he (supposedly) wasn't the war mongerer against Iran, General Milley was. 
  
• Even Richard Nixon, when subpoenaed, gave back the tapes that belonged to the government and sealed his fate as President. Trump did no such thing, quite the contrary, he refused,  obfuscated and deflected.
  
• Trump's explanation changed 10 times..
  

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The 37-count federal indictment of former president Donald Trump unsealed Friday provides a vivid account of Trump’s actions at his homes in South Florida and New Jersey, and is based on information from a coterie of close aides, household staffers and lawyers hired to serve Trump in his post-presidency. The account from Trump insiders in the 49-page indictment provides a thorough rebuttal to many claims made by Trump about his handling of classified material, including that he may have kept some material by accident or may have considered the material declassified by him.

A secretary — identified in the indictment as “Trump Employee 2” — told prosecutors that Trump himself had been packing and looking through boxes, contrary to assertions from his own lawyers. A young political aide, referred to as “the PAC representative” in the indictment, told prosecutors that Trump showed him a classified map about a military operation in a foreign country and told him to stand back because it was a secret document. At a recent CNN town hall, Trump said he did not remember doing such a thing.

Evidence in Trump’s indictment came from inside Mar-a-Lago and those hired for him

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The night that Donald Trump was indicted, Republican politicians again swore their allegiance to the man and the base for which he stands. Most invoked banana republics, but a bolder faction suggested retaliation. “We have now reached a war phase,” wrote Representative Andy Biggs on Twitter. “Eye for an eye.” Speaking in Georgia, Arizona’s failed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake—continuing her audition for VP on Trump’s ticket—promised that 75 million armed Americans stood between Trump and prosecution. “That’s not a threat,” she smirked. “That’s a public-service announcement.” But Representative Clay Higgins of Louisiana, a former sheriff’s deputy, issued the most strident statement of all. He advised followers on Twitter:

President Trump said he has “been summoned to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami on Tuesday, at 3 PM.” This is a perimeter probe from the oppressors. Hold. rPOTUS has this. Buckle up. 1/50K know your bridges. Rock steady calm. That is all.

The Congressman Telling Trump Supporters to ‘Buckle Up’

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The case is assigned to Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee to the federal district court in southern Florida. Cannon, a fairly young judge who was confirmed to the bench after Trump lost reelection but before President Joe Biden took office, has come onto the national stage so far only once: for her extraordinary efforts to sabotage the Justice Department’s investigation into Trump’s possession of classified documents.

A panel of three appellate judges, two also appointed by Trump, eventually stepped in and neutralized this sabotage — in an opinion that identified about a dozen errors in her decisions. Eventually, a second panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled that she never had jurisdiction to interfere with the DOJ’s investigation in the first place. 

That latter opinion — which was handed down by a panel that included two Trump appointees and Chief Judge William Pryor, a prominent figure in the conservative Federalist Society — labeled Cannon’s decisions favoring Trump “a radical reordering of our caselaw limiting the federal courts’ involvement in criminal investigations” and warned that Cannon’s approach “would violate bedrock separation-of-powers limitations.”

Trump indictment: Who is Aileen Cannon? The Trump judge assigned to Trump’s case, explained - Vox

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In short, the right wants us to believe that Biden and his administration will stop at nothing to put Trump in jail as quickly as possible. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Worried about just this type of accusation, the justice department under Merrick Garland and the FBI have approached their investigations of Trump much too cautiously. Far from being persecuted because of who he is, Trump’s status as a former president and as the unofficial leader of the Republican party have led to him being handled with vastly more deference than anyone else would be. The result has been a series of delays and missteps which may allow Trump to escape accountability once again.

It is now nearly 18 months since the government first recovered classified material from Mar-a-Lago in early 2022. Although the justice department concluded shortly afterwards that Trump likely possessed further sensitive material, it took seven months for Mar-a-Lago to be searched, in part because the FBI feared that the move would open the agency to accusations of partisanship. Trump was then only indicted nearly a year later. After his initial arraignment he remains a free man, released without having to post bail – despite credible concerns he may still have additional classified material in his possession. Compare that timeline to the events surrounding the arrest of intelligence contractor Reality Winner, who in 2017 received a five-year prison sentence for leaking one document to the news website the Intercept. The document Winner leaked was written on 5 May 2017 and she was arrested on 3 June, days before the Intercept even had a chance to publish its article about her leak. She was indicted on 8 June and jailed pending her trial. Winner later pleaded guilty to violating the Espionage Act – precisely the law that it seemed clear Trump had flouted for over a year before he was indicted.

Trump has likewise been slow to face consequences in the federal investigation into his actions leading up to the insurrection at the US Capitol. According to a new report by the Washington Post, the justice department and FBI delayed launching a probe into Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 election for 15 months, again because of fears that they would be criticized for partisanship. The agencies instead pursued cases against rank-and-file insurrectionists, ignoring the existence of evidence implicating Trump and his inner circle until media and political pressure forced them to begin taking it seriously. These delays matter because they make it possible – even likely – that Trump will never truly face accountability for his actions. Trump’s trial in the documents case is unlikely to be held before the 2024 presidential election and the same is true for any possible charges in the January 6 case. If Trump wins the election and becomes president again – as current polls suggest he will – then he will have multiple tools at his disposal to derail the trials or even pardon himself. Justice delayed will be justice denied.

The right believes the FBI is obsessed with jailing Trump. The opposite is true | Andrew Gawthorpe | The Guardian

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Months after leaving the White House, former President Donald Trump allegedly discussed potentially sensitive information about U.S. nuclear submarines with a member of his Mar-a-Lago Club -- an Australian billionaire who then allegedly shared the information with scores of others, including more than a dozen foreign officials, several of his own employees, and a handful of journalists, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Trump allegedly discussed US nuclear subs with foreign national after leaving White House: Sources - ABC News