The Mar-a-Lago classified docs case keeps getting worse for Trump

New reporting from the Washington Post that Trump employees moved boxes of classified documents suggests plenty about the former president's intent.

On Thursday, The Washington Post published a bombshell story on new developments in the Justice Department’s investigation into classified documents found at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. If the Post reporting is accurate, Trump’s already perilous legal situation just got a lot worse.

On June 3, 2022, a senior Justice Department prosecutor and federal agents went to Mar-a-Lago to retrieve material in response to a May 2022 subpoena requiring the return of all classified documents from Trump’s residence. One day earlier, sources told the Post, two Trump employees had moved boxes of documents into a storage area, raising the question of whether Trump was hiding classified documents from the agents and keeping them in violation of the subpoena. (NBC News and MSNBC have not confirmed the Post’s report. In a statement to NBC, a Trump spokesperson called the Justice Department’s actions “nothing more than a targeted, politically motivated witch hunt against President Trump.”

The Post reports that Trump and his aides had allegedly practiced moving sensitive papers that Trump did not want to give back to the government, even before his office received the subpoena last year. According to the Post and The New York Times, Trump at times also reportedly kept classified documents visible in his office, and even showed them to others, raising the question of whether Trump had improperly made classified documents available for people to see who had no clearance to see the documents.

If Trump instructed his employees to move documents for the obvious purpose of concealing them from investigators — especially if they practiced doing so — then that would speak directly to Trump’s intent in this matter. In light of a grand jury subpoena requiring the return of the classified documents, he would appear to have taken brazen steps to thwart the subpoena and interfere with the Justice Department’s investigation. That intent meets the requirements for an obstruction of justice charge under 18 U.S.C. 1519.

Federal prosecutors have evidence sexual abuser Donald Trump showed classified documents to people, as the investigation into his handling of national security materials and obstruction of justice approaches its conclusion.

The development could raise the stakes for the failed ex-president as it exposes him to serious action under the Espionage Act, of wilfully communicating national security materials rather than simply retaining them, which is rarely charged.

greggerypeccary wrote on May 28^th, 2023 at 7:59am:


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Before they did that they had a practice run before the actual event.