Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

Trump's lawyers admit to him violating the Espionage Act in their own court filing: legal analyst

Harvard Law School Professor Laurence Tribe walked through the "strange" court filing from Donald Trump calling for a court-appointed reviewer of the documents taken from his golf club after a search warrant. But among the things that were the most unexpected is the admission of guilt.

Legal analyst Marcy Wheeler, of EmptyWheel, posted an excerpt from the documents showing the strange admission of guilt.

The court filing says that Trump was subpoenaed on May 11, 2022, and "On June 2, 2022, President Trump, through counsel, invited the FBI to come to Mar-a-Lago to retrieve responsive documents."

About a month after the subpoena, Trump invited the FBI to come in and look at what he had. So, why did Trump still have the documents after June 2, necessitating a search warrant?

"Responsive documents were provided to the FBI agents," it says on page 5.

Twice, in the document, Trump admits he took government documents, which is illegal under the Espionage Act and the Presidential Records Act.



This sentence is a confession to a violation of the Espionage Act.

Written by lawyers claiming to represent the former President, who they call the President.



"On June 8, 2022, Mr. Bratt wrote to counsel for President Trump. His letter requested, in pertinent part, that the storage room be secured. In response, President Trump directed his staff to place a second lock on the door to the storage room, and one was added," says the filing.

New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman revealed on Monday evening that the documents contained over 300 classified items that included national security information involving the NSA, CIA and FBI. The docs were not only in a storage room, but they were also being hidden in Donald Trump's personal office closet. It's unclear if the FBI knew about that prior to the search, however.

Laurence Tribe called the court documents "very strange," a non-legal term reserved for extraordinarily bizarre cases.

"It's very strange," he began. "For one thing, it's filed not on behalf of private citizen Trump but filed on behalf of President Donald J. Trump. You know, it's never been clear that he distinguishes between himself as a private citizen and himself as president. That may help explain just psychologically why he feels he's entitled to all these papers. He says they're his. That's one thing that's really strange. Another thing that's quite strange, you mentioned yourself just a minute ago: he waited a couple of weeks. So, it's sort of too late to ask for some new special master."

Palm Beach County Attorney Dave Aronberg told CNN earlier on Monday that the legal filing was "a day late and a dollar short," referring to Trump's inability to file the challenge immediately upon the search warrant. Aronberg said this is largely the problem of having a limp legal team that spent more time trying the case on conservative news than it did try it in court.

Tribe noticed on page seven that Trump attacked the Justice Department for taking three days to get the search warrant and execute it. It's unclear why Trump is bothered by the timeline.

"Then, finally, it's strange, not so much what it says but what it doesn't say," he continued. "It doesn't really give any good reasons for thinking this warrant was illegal. In fact, one of the amazing things that I agree with is a statement on page 13 that President Trump, he still calls himself President Trump, should not be treated differently from any other citizen. Finally, he gets that right. Any other citizen who took top-secret material to not just a private home but a resort, like Mar-a-Lago, which has been penetrated by Chinese spies and perhaps by others, would be prosecuted under the Espionage Act. So, he is sort of asking Merrick Garland to prosecute him. Thank you, Mr. Trump, I won't call him President Trump."

Reid then walked through a list of people who were arrested for taking top secret documents in other administrations and were indicted.

"If he's being treated not as president but as a citizen, he's got to be indicted," Tribe explained. "Otherwise, the rule of law just doesn't mean anything."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

'This guy is really bad': Even some Pennsylvania Trump voters feel queasy about backing Doug Mastriano



On Monday, WHYY reported that many suburban voters in Pennsylvania — even some who backed former President Donald Trump — are hesitant to support GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, whom they see as an extremist.

One of the key reasons, according to the report, is Mastriano's position on abortion, which he would theoretically be able to put into action in light of the Supreme Court's decision to eliminate the judicial protections in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

"Mastriano, a state senator, opposes abortion under all circumstances. His Democratic opponent, Attorney General Josh Shapiro, says he wants to maintain Pennsylvania’s current law: Abortion is legal up to about 24 weeks of gestation, with later-term abortions permitted in case of a medical emergency," reported Katie Meyer. "Stacy Naulty is one of those voters for whom a total ban is a problem. She’s 43 and lives near Lansdale, a Montgomery County town about an hour from Philadelphia, with her four kids. She supported Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020."

“I think he’s too far conservative. I think he will cause more of a divide in our state if he gets in as governor,” said Naulty to WHYY. She added, “I do think he will take it to the extreme and completely shut abortion down altogether, and that’s not an answer these days. People rape children. You’re going to have her, you know, have a baby out of that situation? No. It’s not OK.”

Cara Alderfen, a Bucks County woman who voted for Trump in 2016, agreed, saying, "this guy is really bad" and the abortion issue was "the nail in the coffin for me."

Mastriano's candidacy has been dogged with controversy from the start. He was present at the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and lied about the extent of his involvement. He also has ties to local extremist churches, including the pro-QAnon "Rod of Iron Ministries" that believes guns are sacred, and LifeGate, a Christian nationalist group that has ties to militia groups and has provided security at Mastriano's campaign stops.

All of this comes as Pennsylvania Republicans are also struggling in the Senate race, with their nominee, daytime TV celebrity Dr. Mehmet Oz, becoming a target of widespread ridicule for a recirculating video of himself from April in a grocery store in which he complained about the high price of crudités.

Read More Here: https://whyy.org/articles/pennsylvania-suburban-voters-abortion-mastriano-election-2022/


Pennsylvania Republican's security team includes an Oath Keeper and members of a 'scary' church: report



Right-wing gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano has surrounded himself with an armed security team who count at least one member with direct ties to a militia group, and it's not clear whether they're being paid.

The Pennsylvania Republican's security detail includes several members of the LifeGate evangelical church whose leaders openly call for electing Christians who will govern based on their interpretation of biblical principles, including Elizabethtown Area School Board member James Emery, who blocked reporters from entering a Mastriano campaign event in Erie, reported Lancaster Online.

“I’ve not known state senators and House members to have security, per se, they might have aides following them,” said G. Terry Madonna, a senior fellow in residence for political affairs at Millersville University. “But this doesn't strike me as unusual given where we are as a country. (Six or seven security guards) would seem to me to be unusually large, but again, given the environment we’re in.”

But what is unusual are the associations some of these security team members bring to Mastriano's campaign, including Emery's membership in the politically active LifeGate Church, which some Republicans believe is attempting "a hostile takeover" of the local GOP.

“It’s a little scary," said Logan Hoover, a West Donegal Township resident who lost a race for committeeman. "As a Republican I hope Republicans do well, I don’t wish them ill will, but I hope we are true to who we are as a community and not just this one single group.”

Scott Nagle, another Mastriano security guard and LifeGate member, was recently listed as regional director for the Oath Keepers militia whose co-founder, Stewart Rhodes, has been charged with seditious conspiracy for allegedly helping to plot the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Mastriano was at the U.S. Capitol that day and has denied breaching police barriers, but he has campaigned on Donald Trump's election lies and promised to help ensure his favored candidate won the next presidential election.

Read More Here:

https://lancasteronline.com/news/politics/flow-from-the-pulpit-the-lifegate-church-members-providing-security-to-doug-mastriano-video/article_df406aa2-1fe2-11ed-aeff-03f9ba26a060.html

[Rick Plant]

'Yikes': Experts stunned after Trump's late-night release of incredibly incriminating NARA document



Former President Donald Trump reportedly released a new document very late Monday night that legal experts believe is incredibly damning.

Far-right writer John Solomon, who is one of Donald Trump's official representatives for the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), released a May 10 letter on his JustTheNews.com website.

Solomon released a letter from NARA to Trump's lawyers.

"As you are no doubt aware, NARA had ongoing communications with the former President’s representatives throughout 2021 about what appeared to be missing Presidential records, which resulted in the transfer of 15 boxes of records to NARA in January 2022," the letter read. "In its initial review of materials within those boxes, NARA identified items marked as classified national security information, up to the level of Top Secret and including Sensitive Compartmented Information and Special Access Program materials. NARA informed the Department of Justice about that discovery, which prompted the Department to ask the President to request that NARA provide the FBI with access to the boxes at issue so that the FBI and others in the Intelligence Community could examine them."

Experts were stunned.

"Yikes," tweeted Tufts Prof. Daniel Drezner. Washington Post reporter Olivier Knox said, "this is incredible."

Attorney Bradley Moss wondered, "Does [John Solomon] realize how bad that letter is for Trump?"

"Trump not only had classified records at Mar-a-Lago, not only had TS/SCI classified records, he had Special Access Program classified information," Moss explained. "Those are our most sensitive secrets. They were sitting in a damn basement."

Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti said, "The letter also confirms that Trump was on notice that the documents he possessed were federal government property and that he needed to return them to the government’s possession. Very uphill battle for Trump’s team."

Justin Baragona, a correspondent for The Daily Beast, explained, "The best part of this is that John Solomon posted the letter because he thinks it is extraordinarily damning for the Biden White House. (Or he's at least trying to preemptively frame it that way for Trumpworld.)"

"Also John Solomon refers to Trump as 'the man Joe Biden beat in the 2020 election,'" Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) expert Jason Leopold wrote.

"This is quite a damning letter," he concluded.

But attorney Teri ....field tried to put herself in the shoes of the man who released the letter, purportedly on Trump's behalf.

"I'm trying to figure out why John Solomon thought this letter would help Trump," ....field wrote. "I'm stumped."

University of Law Prof. Steve Vladeck wrote, "The May 10 letter from NARA is damning to former President Trump on any number of levels — not the least of which is the lack of any reference to a claim by Trump’s representatives that he had *declassified* any of the classified materials that were quite specifically at issue."

"It’s also telling that, even though this letter really hurts the Trump version of events, it wasn’t released by the Biden Administration or NARA. It was released by Trump’s own team—both a self-inflicted wound and further proof of how the government has been playing by the rules," Vladeck added.

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-nara/



'The lawyers or Donald Trump is going down': Legal expert says



Speaking to MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell on Monday evening, legal analysts Andrew Weissman and Brad Moss walked through how Donald Trump made his legal problems even worse with his latest court filing.

Weissmann, who previously served as the counsel for the FBI and under Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation, explained that the to stories in the Times and the court filing pair well together because they both link Trump to responsibility. The court documents name Trump as providing the requested documents multiple times when asked before the search was executed.

First, Trump was asked for them by the National Archives, holding back several boxes after personally going through them, according to the New York Times. By May 11, 2022, the Justice Department had subpoenaed Trump for the documents he didn't turn over. A month later, he replied, saying he would give them back. So, he turned over some of them, but still not all of them. That's why the FBI was forced to use a search warrant to obtain what Trump refused to turn over.

What the Times also revealed in its report is that the former president was keeping some of the documents hidden in his own closet in his personal office.

"I think there's another shoe to drop here, just to mix a lot of metaphors, which is with the filing today that Donald Trump made, he is opening the door wide for the Justice Department to respond. The attorney general has famously said we only speak through court filings. Well, this is going to allow the attorney general to respond to all the false statements that are in that filing and to fill in some of the timelines and corroborate or not The New York Times story because they know all of the facts and all of the truth and can easily dispel it. But they now have a perfect vehicle for doing that", Weissman said.

He went on to say that he anticipates the Trump filing is possibly going to reveal some of the methodologies behind the Justice Department's affidavit that they don't want to be public. A response to Trump's filing from the DOJ could ultimately give the details around the efforts to try and get the documents back over the past eight months.

O'Donnell noted that Trump lawyer Christina Bobb may have implicated herself as having lied to the court under oath in an affidavit she signed saying that Trump handed everything over.

Moss explained this puts her and Trump in a "whole lot of trouble." He also joked that the real abbreviation for MAGA is "Make Attorneys Get Attorneys." He told Bobb that she should be hiring a lawyer as soon as possible. The next step for the DOJ and FBI is to watch the CCTV tapes to see if Bobb knew that there were more documents and if she lied knowingly or lied because her client lied to her.


Renato Mariotti @renato_mariotti

Christina Bobb is reportedly the attorney who signed a statement to DOJ indicating that, to the best of her knowledge, all the classified material stored at Mar-a-Lago had been returned.

If she knowingly lied, that was a crime. She needs her own lawyer.

https://twitter.com/renato_mariotti/status/1561882662285053952


Weissmann noted that it's highly suspicious that his other lawyer, Evan Corcoran, let Bobb sign the affidavit and that he didn't.

"But he isn't just as much trouble under aiding and abetting if he knew it was false," he explained. "And she was going to sign it. Look, it is going to be a situation where it is either the lawyers or Donald Trump is going down, based on that statement. And the lawyers presumably are going to say, hey, I thought it was true because that is what my client told me. The client being Donald Trump."

He explained that is what happened in the Paul Manafort case under special counsel Robert Mueller.

"He told his lawyers to say something and made representations about what they should convey to the Department of Justice," recalled Weissmann. "And we got a court order from the Chief Judge in D.C. saying about that lawyer. There is no attorney-client privilege there. The lawyer can reveal exactly who they learn the information from. And Paul Manafort was charged with lying to the government because he cost though statements to be made. Exactly the same play can be made and the case law is very strong on that issue. And look, the lawyers have to make a choice. Is it them or is that the client? I would actually suspect that it is the client. I think the lawyers would be incredibly foolhardy to sign something that they knew was false."

Here, Trump accuses his own lawyer, Christina Bobb, who is referred to in this filing by reference, of incompetence.



https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1561838066586763265


Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Trump Had More Than 300 Classified Documents

“The initial batch of documents retrieved by the National Archives from former President Donald J. Trump in January included more than 150 marked as classified, a number that ignited intense concern at the Justice Department and helped trigger the criminal investigation that led F.B.I. agents to swoop into Mar-a-Lago this month seeking to recover more,“ the New York Times reports.

“In total, the government has recovered more than 300 documents with classified markings from Mr. Trump since he left office, the people said: that first batch of documents returned in January, another set provided by Mr. Trump’s aides to the Justice Department in June and the material seized by the F.B.I. in the search this month.”

“The specific nature of the sensitive material that Mr. Trump took from the White House remains unclear. But the 15 boxes Mr. Trump turned over to the archives in January, nearly a year after he left office, included documents from the C.I.A., the National Security Agency and the F.B.I. spanning a variety of topics of national security interest.”

Read the full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/22/us/politics/trump-mar-a-lago-documents.html


Maddow asks Congress how they'll respond to court saying Bill Barr lied about Trump's guilt in Russia probe



MSNBC host Rachel Maddow began her Monday episode citing the court decision last week that former Attorney General Bob Barr lied in his memo about the Russia investigation.

Maddow began by talking about the Office of Legal Counsel that penned a "policy" that a sitting president can't be indicted while in office. But according to Barr, that OLC opinion didn't matter, because special counsel Robert Mueller concluded that Donald Trump was innocent. The three-judge panel of the Federal Appeals Court ruled that was false.

"You might remember William Barr released a statement about it," Maddow recalled of the Mueller report. "And in that statement, he said, I've reviewed this report from Robert Mueller, and as attorney general, I have carefully reviewed all the evidence that Mueller and his team have presented here, all of the evidence they have presented as to whether or not Trump committed crimes. Barr said, specifically that he was disregarding the Justice Department policy that said a sitting president can't be charged with crimes. He said, I'm not paying attention to that. He said regardless of that policy, just ignore that policy, regardless of that rule, I, William Barr, have reviewed all of the evidence, and I have determined that no way should trump face any charges, not just because he's president, not just because of this rule that says no charges can be brought against a president, but regardless of that, Trump shouldn't face any charges because in my, William Barr, review of the evidence in this report indicates that Trump committed no crimes."

He went on to say it to Congress and to the public. What Mueller actually put out is that he didn't even look into whether Trump was implicated in any of the things the team uncovered about the Russia probe. What Mueller did detail in the second part of his report, however, is that there were at least ten instances of obstruction of justice by Donald Trump. He then gave that list to Congress and testified to Congress about it.

But Barr mischaracterized the report in his infamous memo, as Maddow noted, "he signed his name to it."

"The evidence developed during the special counsel's investigation is not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction of justice offense," Barr wrote in his memo. "Our determination was made without regard to and is not based on the constitutional considerations that surround the indictment and criminal prosecution of a sitting president."

"That's what Barr did. That's what Barr said," Maddow quoted. "Turns out that was a lie. At least a federal appeals court in Washington has just ruled that that was a lie. According to a unanimous ruling from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, a three-judge panel, when Robert Mueller turned in his report to the Justice Department, Attorney General Bill Barr and the Justice Department never actually considered at all whether or not Trump committed crimes or whether Trump should be charged. They literally never even looked at that possibility despite what they said they were doing publicly. Barr lied according to the Appeals Court and told Congress and the public that the Justice Department did consider that, and after that careful consideration, they definitely concluded Trump committed no crimes and shouldn't be charged. But the Appeals Court says that Barr lied about it."

She closed by asking what Congress will do about it and what the next steps are to hold Trump accountable for those ten examples of obstruction of justice.

See the segment below:

[Rick Plant]

So, the liars in the right wing media and GOP politicians tried to push lies and conspiracies telling their base that "Joe Biden created inflation and high gas prices".

We all know that's a lie because inflation started back in September of 2020 all around the world. Biden wasn't even in office then and it progressively got worse due to the pandemic that Criminal Donald ignored and the war Putin started in Ukraine.

Because of Biden's policies, we are witnessing a record drop in gas prices and we had 0% Inflation in July.

Other countries around the world are experiencing soaring inflation and gas prices. Are right wingers going to falsely blame Biden for what the entire world is going through?

The success of a President is measured by the actions he takes during a crisis and the immediate results.

The results of President Biden's policies are lower gas prices and lowering inflation while the rest of the world is struggling to get it under control.

Biden's policies have been a success as prices are dropping.


UK inflation projected to hit 18.6% as gas prices surge
https://www.ft.com/content/778e65e1-6ec5-4fd7-98d5-9d701eb29567

Citi projects UK inflation to breach 18% in January as energy prices skyrocket
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/22/citi-projects-uk-inflation-to-breach-18percent-in-january-as-energy-prices-skyrocket.html

Australian inflation speeds to 21-year high
https://www.reuters.com/markets/wealth/australian-inflation-speeds-21-year-high-peak-still-come-2022-07-27/


As the rest of the world is suffering from record high gas prices and inflation, gas in the United States is now at the lowest price since March.






Patrick De Haan @GasBuddyGuy

The national average price of gasoline has declined for 10 straight weeks to $3.865/gal this morning. Americans spending close to $450 million less today on gasoline than mid-June. The most common price is $3.49/gal, while the average price of the lowest 10% is $3.20/gal.

https://twitter.com/GasBuddyGuy/status/1561696680973565954


As the data shows below, inflation in now under control and dropping. Food prices and retail are dropping as well. The supply chain issues have declined. Biden's swift actions have brought down gas and inflation.           

[Rick Plant]

Trump held more than 300 classified documents after leaving White House

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.

The Times also reported Monday that authorities are seeking surveillance video of Mar-a-Lago leading up to the Aug. 8 search in an effort to find out how some of the documents were being handled there.

An unsealed warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago made public days after the search revealed that federal authorities are investigating Trump for possible violations of the Espionage Act, among other statutes. A property receipt of items seized by the FBI shows authorities recovered a trove of materials, including 11 sets of classified documents, some of which were marked top secret.

Trump has insisted he declassified the documents obtained by the FBI, but it is possible he did so without following the proper protocols.

Trump and the National Archives have been at odds since he left office in 2021 after the agency determined he was in possession of White House documents that should have been turned over to the government when he ended his term.

https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/3611686-trump-held-more-than-300-classified-documents-since-leaving-white-house-report/

[Rick Plant]

There's 'great irony' to Trump being probed for stashing top-secret docs: Former DOJ counterintel chief



David Laufman, the former chief of the United States Department of Justice's Counterintelligence Section, believes there is "a great irony" to former President Donald Trump being under investigation for pilfering top-secret documents and stashing them at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Writing on Twitter, Laufman pulls back the curtain on the pressures he faced from the Trump administration to investigate mishandled classified material.

"During my tenure as Chief of [the DOJ's] Counterintelligence Section, we were never under greater pressure to prosecute mishandling of classified info cases than we were under the Trump Admin," reveals Laufman, who is now a partner at the law firm of Wiggin & Dana LLP.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump had made Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server for official State Department business a major case against her candidacy for the presidency. Laufman knows about the Clinton email server case very well, as he oversaw the investigation into the matter.

In a separate tweet, Laufman argues that new reporting from the New York Times shows that Trump should have reason to be worried about potential criminal exposure for taking top-secret documents.

"Trump’s personal involvement in reviewing boxes of documents belatedly produced to National Archives is probative of his possible culpability for obstruction in the false assurances given to DOJ that no more classified docs remained at [Mar-a-Lago]," he observes.

https://twitter.com/DavidLaufmanLaw/status/1562072274387206144


Former federal prosecutor criticizes DOJ for 'treating Trump with kid gloves' instead of just taking the docs



Former federal prosecutor Barb McQuade, who is part of the "Sisters in Law" podcast, said Tuesday that the government has been treating Donald Trump with "kid gloves" when it comes to the documents took from the White House.

Monday evening, it was revealed that there were over 300 documents discovered that were marked classified and top secret. Surveillance videos also reportedly show people coming in and out of the so-called "secure" room and taking documents.

"I will suggest this though, people always assume these kinds of leaks come from within the government. As a prosecutor, I often found they were actually coming from lawyers for the witnesses," said McQuade about the insider information. "So, if there are witnesses who are sharing this information, people who are employees at Mar-a-Lago or otherwise, they would be people familiar with the investigation because there's really not much interest in the government tipping its own hand."

She also mentioned the letter posted by conservative journalist John Solomon, who Trump appointed to be a "designee" on the documents. "In its initial review of materials within those boxes, NARA identified items marked as classified national security information, up to the level of Top Secret and including Sensitive Compartmented Information and Special Access Program materials," the letter said in the late-night release.

McQuade said the letter shows "how only not only is the government not engaged in overreach here, but if they can be accused of doing anything wrong it's that they've engaged in underreach. Treating him with such kid gloves that they've allowed him to retain these documents for months, and months, and months when they should have just gone in and taken them months ago."

She explained that the chronology indicates that federal authorities asked and they kept asking until Jan. 2022, when the National Archives went to Florida to take 15 boxes. They then found out there were things that were missing.

"It was essentially like, going there in May and saying, 'Come on, come on. All off it. Empty your pockets. Let's see what's left,'" McQuade continued. At that point, only one envelope of documents was handed over.

"Now they find out there's 26 more boxes," she continued. "So, finally, it's not until August of this year that they get the search warrant. It really was a last resort. After all kinds of efforts to obtain voluntary compliance, they realized it wasn't coming. These are sensitive documents. Every minute they're out there creates a national security problem for the United States. The risk of exposing sources around the world who are gathering information for our intelligence services. Exposing methods and they need to not only get ahold of these, but do a damage assessment and see the documents before they can do that."

These details are among the reasons that some legal experts think Trump could actually "go down."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Legal expert: After revelation Trump had 700 pages of classified docs ‘I think justice is finally coming for him’



Overnight Donald Trump‘s handpicked representative to the National Archives published a letter that made major revelations in the case of the former President’s retention of and refusal to return classified documents and other White House records that belong to the federal government.

That letter was written by the National Archives (NARA) and published by John Solomon, a longtime right-wing writer with a history of promoting conspiracy theories, on his Just the News website. It includes revelations that Trump, at Mar-a-Lago, had far more classified documents than ever previously reported.

“The National Archives found more than 700 pages of classified material — including ‘special access program materials,’ some of the most highly classified secrets in government — in 15 boxes recovered from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in January, according to correspondence between the National Archivist and his legal team,” Politico reports, citing the letter from NARA published on Solomon’s website.

“In total,” The New York Times Monday evening had reported, before the publication of the NARA letter, “the government has recovered more than 300 documents with classified markings from Mr. Trump since he left office.” (There is a difference between “pages” and “documents” – one document could have several pages.)

The recovered items include “that first batch of documents returned in January, another set provided by Mr. Trump’s aides to the Justice Department in June and the material seized by the F.B.I. in the search this month.”

Legal experts have been left stunned and shocked at this recent revelation, especially given that just hours earlier on Monday Trump sued the federal government demanding a special master be appointed to review every item federal agents recovered from Mar-a-Lago and block the Dept. of Justice from having access to those items, including the classified documents.

“Trump knew he had materials that could damage national security, whether he faux-declassified them or not & used delay & claims of exec[utive] privilege to try to keep them out of DOJ’s hands,” wrote former U.S, Attorney Joyce Vance, pointing to the Politico report. She notes that The New York Times’ “story adds Trump reviewed documents before Jan[uary] turnover to DOJ.”

“Not all cases of mishandling sensitive materials get prosecuted. Those that do seem to have a ‘plus factor,’ like Gen’l Petraeus who disseminated materials,” she explained, referring to former CIA Director David Petraeus who shared classified documents with his biographer. “Here, Trump let numerous people without classification authority have access. Everyone from movers to lawyers.”

“After years of watching Trump manage to worm his way out of justice, I think Justice is finally coming for him,” Vance concluded.

https://twitter.com/JoyceWhiteVance/status/1562061510779838464