FBI raids Trump’s Mar-a-Lago

[Rick Plant]

​Judge unseals nine additional paragraphs from Mar-a-Lago search warrant affidavit



Judge Aileen Cannon on Tuesday unsealed more of the pages from the affidavit for the FBI search warrant issued for the classified documents Donald Trump took with him to his country club in Palm Beach, Florida.

There were two grand jury subpoenas issued prior to the search at Mar-a-Lago, the pages detail. They were part of the ongoing litigation around the special master. Federal prosecutors told Judge Cannon Tuesday that they've already talked about the special master in another case with the judge overseeing the grand jury and that that judge approved the disclosure of the information redacted previously

One piece that is new is the search warrant affidavit is that five of the documents were marked "confidential," 16 marked "secret," and 17 marked "top secret."

Other markings on the documents at Mar-a-Lago continued information derived from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is the kind of surveillance that happens electronically involving foreign adversaries to the U.S. as well as human intelligence.

There was a certified letter to the FBI and DOJ at Mar-a-Lago on June 3 saying that "based upon the information that has been provided to me, I am authorized to certify on behalf of the office of Donald Trump the following," it then makes the case that they'd searched all of the boxes in Florida from the White House and that they'd handed over all of the documents. The name isn't included in the new release, but reports indicated it was lawyer Christina Bobb.

Her letter also details that they did a search of the storage room and that there were no additional documents anywhere else in Mar-a-Lago, but the FBI alleges that it found many documents in Trump's personal office, his desk drawers and in the office closet.

According to "Individual 2," who is a National Archives representative for Trump said, “When producing the documents, neither FPOTUS COUNSEL 1 nor INDIVIDUAL 2 asserted that FPOTUS had declassified the documents. 2 The documents being in a Redweld envelope wrapped in tape appears to be consistent with an effort to handle the documents as if they were still classified.”

The newly unredacted portion of the Mar-a-Lago search warrant affidavit, the former president's "Counsel 1" pointed to Trump in what could be considered an obstruction of justice under 18 U.S.C. § 1519," tweeted lawyer George Conway.

You can read the full filing here: https://www.rawstory.com/trump-documents-additional-paragraphs/

[Rick Plant]

Unsealed Mar-a-Lago affidavit shows Donald Trump 'did play a role' in hiding documents: legal analyst

A federal magistrate judge responding to a U.S. Dept. of Justice request Tuesday afternoon further unsealed the affidavit used to obtain the search warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago on August 8.

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, on MSNBC, says the additional information appears to confirm that Donald Trump likely played a role in instructing his attorney, who ultimately certified there were no classified documents remaining at Mar-a-Lago, before federal agents entered the Trump resort and retrieved more than 100 classified and top secret documents.

“This does in large part make the information that’s been revealed consistent between the D.C. and the Florida investigations,” Vance, a professor of law, told Nicolle Wallace.

Vance suggested that the newly revealed information appears to confirm that Trump was at least involved in the events that led his attorney to tell DOJ there were no more classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

“If there’s one takeaway here and Nicole, and it’s not certain, but there’s more of an implication in this newly released information that the former president did play a role in the provision of information about documents to whoever the lawyer who certified this information to the Justice Department,” Vance surmised.

“There’s this implication that documents were stored in storage areas and that there was nothing in personal offices and that seems like the sort of information that would have been very likely to come from the former president,” she added.

“So this gives DOJ more of a basis to move forward. And of course, because this involves the grand jury, subpoenas are not documents that were ultimately seized in the search. DOJ is free to move forward with inquiries to witnesses without violating Judge Cannons order,” to not use the seized classified documents until after a special master has reviewed them.

Watch: https://twitter.com/i/status/1569794028916408323

[Rick Plant]

Mar-a-Lago documents: Trump delaying tactics causing ‘irreparable harm’ – DoJ

Justice department court filing argues that judge’s special master ruling impedes its review of highly classified documents


Pages from a Department of Justice court filing last month in response to a request from Donald Trump’s legal team for a special master to review seized documents.

Donald Trump’s lawyers are causing “irreparable harm” to the government and public by delaying the investigation into his hoarding of highly classified documents at his Florida mansion, the US Department of Justice said.

The claim came in a strongly worded court filing urging a district judge, Aileen Cannon, to reconsider her ruling last week granting Trump’s request for an independent “special master” in the case.

The Department of Justice argued that the order stops it continuing its review of thousands of documents, some reportedly containing details of a foreign power’s nuclear secrets, seized during an FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach last month.

Federal agents discovered the papers in a basement storage area and a desk drawer, despite assurances from Trump’s lawyers that all documents he took with him after leaving the White House in January 2021 had been returned to the National Archives.

“Markings [on the documents] signify that their unauthorized disclosure ‘reasonably could be expected to result in damage to the national security,’ including ‘exceptionally grave damage’,” Tuesday’s justice department filing said, adding that a delay would cause “irreparable harm”.

“Plaintiff has characterised the government’s criminal investigation as a ‘document storage dispute’ or an ‘overdue library book scenario.’ In doing so, plaintiff has not addressed the potential harms that could result from mishandling classified information or the strict requirements imposed by law for handling such materials.”

Cannon, a Trump appointee to the federal bench, has been widely criticized for the “special master” ruling, which some have argued placed Trump “above the law”. She has given no indication if or when she will reconsider the order.

Trump’s lawyers have urged Cannon to leave the order in place, claiming without evidence that the former president declassified the documents before he left office.

The justice department rejects that argument, insisting that even if Trump had taken such an action, which it notes has not been asserted in any of Trump’s legal filings or sworn declarations, the papers still belonged to the government and are not his personal property.

Also on Tuesday, another judge unsealed additional portions of an FBI affidavit laying out the basis for the search of Mar-a-Lago, showing that agents earlier obtained a hard drive after issuing a subpoena for surveillance footage recorded inside Mar-a-Lago.

A redacted version was released last month, but the justice department requested permission to show more of it after Trump’s lawyers revealed the existence of a June grand jury subpoena that sought video footage from cameras near the storage room.

According to the newly visible portions of the agent’s affidavit, the FBI subpoenaed the footage on 24 June, weeks after observing about 50 boxes of records in the storage room at Mar-a-Lago.

The Trump Organization provided a hard drive on 6 July in response to the subpoena, the affidavit says.

“Because those aspects of the grand jury’s investigation have now been publicly revealed, there is no longer any reason to keep them sealed (i.e. redacted) in the filings in this matter,” the justice department filing said.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/14/trump-documents-justice-department-irreparable-harm

[Rick Plant]

'Surprising his lawyers went along with this': CNN legal expert thinks special master ploy may blow up in Trump's face

CNN legal analyst Paul Callan had nothing but praise for retired Senior Judge Raymond Dearie, who was appointed this week by Judge Aileen Cannon to serve as special master to oversee documents seized by the FBI from former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort.

However, Callan also found himself surprised that Trump lawyers would agree with Dearie, who has a reputation for fairness.

Specifically, Callan called Dearie "an excellent choice" and said that it was "very surprising that Trump lawyers went along with this."

"He is a FISA judge, has been involved in some rulings that were adverse to Trump in prior investigations," said Callan. "He is a fair guy, he is a bright guy, he can take fighting parties and get them together and settle cases. Tremendous respect."

Callan also predicted that Dearie would not let Trump and his lawyers play games with the aim of stalling or delaying the DOJ's investigation into the documents Trump had stashed at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

"He will get it done fast, that's my bet," he emphasized.

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Trump may have put his lawyers in a bind if they have to face the 11th Court of Appeals: legal analyst

During an appearance on MSNBC on Sunday afternoon, former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner claimed the attorneys for Donald Trump may have some explaining to do if they have to face the eleven judges who make up the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and have to admit they weren't entirely truthful with Judge Aileen Cannon.

Speaking with host Yasmin Vossoughian, Kirschner said the former president may have put his attorneys in a bad spot by insisting he declassified all of the sensitive government documents sought by the Department of Justice that led to an FBI search of Mar-a-Lago.

Of concern, is how Trump's attorneys will respond on Tuesday to another appeal from the DOJ over disputed documents and where it goes from there.

"Donald Trump's defense team will probably offer nothing new," Kirschner offered. "They have been playing coy the whole time with respect to whether Trump ever declassified anything."

"If he had, I suspect his defense team would have asserted that in court. But they've put themselves in a bit of a trick bag because if they now go up to the 11th Circuit and start to make new factual representations like 'Oh, we may have withheld from Judge Cannon the fact that he declassified documents but we are now telling you, the 11th Circuit judges,' I do not think that will play well."

"Why?" the MSNBC host pressed.

"Because they will have withheld relevant information to Judge Cannon's determination," he replied. "I think this whole thing has been a parlor game. Did he or did he not declassify documents? And I think Donald Trump may have been using it to whip up his base. But I don't think we're going to see a legal argument that he declassified anything."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Don't forget that Criminal Donald stole the most sensitive nuclear secrets which puts our national security in danger and the MAGA Republican party is just fine with that.   

[Rick Plant]

Here is the DOJ's detailed letter to Special Master Dearie regarding his proposed Draft Case Management Order and other related issues in the MAL case:



courtlistener.com
Notice (Other) – #96 in Trump v. United States (S.D. Fla., 9:22-cv-81294) – CourtListener.com
NOTICE by United States Of America re 94 Order Proposed Agenda (Edelstein, Julie) (Entered: 09/19/2022)

The DOJ smartly includes the search warrant and the redacted affidavit in support of the search warrant with this letter.  It will serve to remind Dearie of the egregious facts against Trump and how many times Trump NEVER invoked ANY KIND OF PRIVILEGE.