Trump lashes out at Gov. Doug Ducey following certification

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DA Alvin Bragg delivers Donald Trump a gift by going easy on Trump's criminal CFO, Allen Weisselberg
by Glenn Kirschner
Aug 19, 2022



First, the career prosecutors - Pomerantz and Dunne - who concluded there was enough evidence to charge and convict Donald Trump of multiple felon offenses resigned because New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg killed the criminal investigation into Donald Trump. Now, DA Bragg gives Trump's long-time Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg a sweetheart plea deal for the ages. Weisselberg pleaded guilty to 15 felonies but was gifted a sentence that likely will result in only 100 days in jail (assuming he earns good-time credit). Moreover, although Weisselberg said he would testify against the Trump organization, he told Bragg that he would not cooperate with the investigation into Donald Trump's crimes, nor would he testify against Trump. The plea deal Bragg gave Weisselberg is a travesty and a miscarriage of justice.

This video discusses how competent prosecutors deal with career criminals like Weisselberg when they are trying to develop them as a cooperating witnesses.

Transcript

0:00
injustice in a manhattan courtroom.
0:04
let's talk about the obscene sweetheart
0:06
deal new york district attorney alvin
0:09
bragg gave trump's corrupt chief
0:13
financial officer, alan weisselberg.
0:16
this one's offensive.
0:19
because
0:20
justice
0:22
matters.
0:30
[Music]
0:38
hey all, glenn kirschner here.
0:40
so friends, this is not going to be an
0:43
upbeat video,
0:45
because
0:46
yesterday was not a good day for justice
0:49
in a courtroom in manhattan.
0:52
district attorney alvin bragg delivered
0:55
an absolute gift to donald trump.
1:00
here is the reporting from the new york
1:02
times.
1:04
headline: "alan weisselberg, a top trump
1:07
executive, pleads guilty in tax scheme.
1:11
one of donald j trump's most trusted
1:13
executives pleaded guilty on thursday to
1:16
conspiring with mr trump's company to
1:19
carry out a long-running tax scheme,
1:22
an admission that painted a damning
1:25
picture of the former president's family
1:27
business, but
1:29
did not advance
1:31
a broader investigation into the former
1:34
president himself.
1:37
and alan weisselberg pleaded guilty to
1:40
15 felony crimes, so you would expect
1:44
he's going to prison for a very long
1:46
time.
1:48
get this:
1:50
under the terms of the plea deal, if mr
1:52
weisselberg testifies truthfully at the
1:55
upcoming trial -- that's against the trump
1:57
organization not, against donald trump --
2:01
he will receive a five-month sentence,
2:04
and likely serve as little as 100 days,
2:08
with time credited for good behavior.
2:11
mr weisselberg, who was facing up to 15
2:13
years in prison,
2:15
must also pay nearly 2 million dollars
2:17
in taxes, penalties, and interest.
2:21
this plea does not require mr
2:24
weisselberg to cooperate with the
2:26
district attorney's broader criminal
2:28
investigation of mr trump, and his
2:31
admissions will not implicate the former
2:35
president.
2:36
in refusing to cooperate against mr
2:38
trump, mr weisselberg fended off intense
2:42
pressure from the prosecutors."
2:45
boy, you know, it's a good thing alan
2:48
weiselberg didn't snatch a purse,
2:52
sell a 20 rock of crack cocaine, or
2:56
sell some loose cigarettes, because then
2:58
maybe he would have really been in tr ...
3:00
well, no, probably not. because alan
3:03
weiselberg is a rich, influential,
3:06
connected white male.
3:10
so he gets to set his own terms of the
3:12
deal with prosecutors,
3:15
even though he was involved in a 15-year
3:18
long criminal scheme to defraud
3:21
the taxpayers of the city of new york, of
3:23
the state of new york, and federal
3:24
taxpayers, though he hasn't been charged,
3:27
for some reason, with his federal tax
3:30
crimes.
3:34
let me talk for a few minutes, friends,
3:36
about
3:37
how we take defendants,
3:39
like alan weiselberg,
3:41
people who can
3:43
absolutely give us bigger criminal fish,
3:46
and try to convert them into cooperating
3:49
witnesses.
3:51
now,
3:52
in my many years in the homicide
3:54
practice at the u.s attorney's office in
3:56
d.c.,
3:58
I worked with and developed lots and lots
4:00
of cooperating witnesses. one of my
4:03
colleagues, one of my former assistant
4:05
u.s attorneys in the homicide section,
4:07
used to call me "the king of the
4:08
cooperators", and that was not a
4:11
compliment.
4:12
you know, defendants who have chosen a
4:15
life of crime, career criminals, can be
4:17
very, very challenging to work with, when
4:21
you're trying to convert them from
4:22
defendant
4:24
to cooperating witness.
4:26
why? because you have to take somebody
4:28
who has lived a life of crime,
4:30
convince them
4:32
to tell the complete truth about all of
4:35
their crimes,
4:37
and all of their friends crimes, and all
4:39
of their family members crimes, if their
4:42
family members were involved in their
4:44
criminal activities,
4:46
and then you could start to talk to them
4:48
about the crimes of the bigger criminal
4:51
fish, and work your way up that criminal
4:54
food chain.
4:56
and people who have chosen a life of
4:57
crime -- and make no mistake about it,
4:59
alan weisselberg chose a life of
5:01
crime -- white collar crime, though it may
5:03
have been -- it's very challenging to get
5:06
them to
5:08
become effective cooperators, to tell the
5:10
complete truth about their own crimes,
5:13
and then the crimes of others. but it can
5:16
be done,
5:17
and prosecutors do it every day. but
5:19
there's a formula.
5:21
there's a tried and true approach to how
5:23
you deal with a defendant that you're
5:25
trying to flip,
5:27
and convert to become a really quality
5:30
cooperating witness. here's what you do.
5:33
you take a guy like alan weisselberg and
5:35
you say, "look,
5:37
you are caught dead to rights in a
5:39
15-year criminal scheme to defraud in
5:41
the first degree. 15 felony counts you're
5:44
indicted on.
5:46
so you really only have two options, mr
5:48
weisselberg: one,
5:50
tell me the truth about everything you
5:51
did, everything your family did, and
5:53
everything donald trump did,
5:56
or
5:57
spend the rest of your life in prison
6:00
as a result of,
6:02
you know going to trial and being
6:03
convicted on all 15 counts. those are
6:05
your only two choices.
6:08
that's the way it works."
6:10
and if an allen weisselberg says, "i'm not
6:12
going to testify. i'm not going to
6:14
cooperate against donald trump. i'm not going
6:16
to tell you everything. but i will demand
6:20
a plea deal that would land me in jail
6:22
for only a hundred days, even though i'm
6:24
facing life, given my age."
6:28
prosecutors are supposed to say,
6:31
"no, i'll see you at trial."
6:35
but alvin bragg
6:38
blinked,
6:40
and decided he would let alan weiselberg
6:43
set the terms, and those terms included
6:47
only a hundred days
6:49
in jail, if he gets good time credit,
6:52
and he doesn't have to cooperate,
6:54
and
6:55
you know assist the prosecutors in
6:58
holding donald trump accountable for his
6:59
crimes?
7:01
that is
7:03
a deal that i have never seen the likes
7:05
of
7:06
in my 30 years as a prosecutor.
7:10
what motivated bragg to do that i have
7:12
no idea, but what i can tell you friends,
7:16
is it's an absolute
7:18
gift
7:19
to donald trump.
7:21
now i have heard some say,
7:23
"oh well, wait a minute, wait a minute,
7:25
alvin bragg has this very stealth-like,
7:29
double secret probation plan that will
7:33
end up, you know, using weisselberg -- even
7:36
though this deal looks really bad --
7:38
using weisselberg somehow against trump,"
7:42
to which i say that rings hollow. you
7:45
know why?
7:47
if alvin bragg had a stealth double
7:50
secret probation approach in what seems
7:53
to be a horrific plea deal,
7:57
then
7:58
would the top prosecutors, pomerantz and
8:01
dunn,
8:03
have resigned in protest,
8:05
with pomerantz in his resignation letter
8:08
essentially saying,
8:10
"we had enough evidence to indict and
8:12
convict donald trump on multiple
8:15
felonies,
8:17
but alvin bragg killed the case against
8:20
trump.
8:20
we resign."
8:23
no, it doesn't make sense that all of
8:26
this is part part of some
8:28
grander plan that nobody can really see,
8:32
where, you know, alvin bragg is the
8:34
prosecutorial mastermind. nonsense.
8:38
this was a sweetheart deal to alan
8:41
weiselberg
8:42
that is a gift to trump, for reasons that
8:45
i can't explain,
8:47
but i sure hope somebody investigates
8:51,
goes behind it, and finds out what the
8:54
heck is going on in the manhattan
8:57
district attorney's office.
9:00
now there are other topics we could talk
9:02
about, why this is such a horrific plea
9:04
deal,
9:05
and let me just touch on them for a
9:07
minute or two.
9:10
allen weisselberg said, "okay, i'll testify
9:12
against the trump organization, but i
9:14
won't testify or cooperate against
9:16
donald trump himself, to hold him
9:18
accountable for his crimes. well,
9:19
weisselberg is the trump organization, as
9:22
is donald trump, and his family members,
9:24
and weisselberg, the chief financial
9:26
officer, has already pleaded guilty to 15
9:29
felonies, corruptly
9:31
running the financial end of the trump
9:33
organization. so his offer to plead
9:36
against the trump organization, which is
9:38
pending trial,
9:40
it is indicted, the organization, and has
9:43
a trial date coming up in the fall, -- let
9:45
me predict, there won't be a trial.
9:47
they'll somehow settle their way out of
9:49
it --
9:51
but his agreement to
9:53
to testify against the trump
9:54
organization is not all that
9:56
earth-shattering.
9:58
but if he does have to testify as a
10:01
cooperating witness ,his testimony is
10:03
going to be,
10:06
is going to be
10:07
damaged
10:09
by this plea deal.
10:10
because
10:12
the defense attorneys for the trump
10:15
organization will be able to
10:16
cross-examine him on, "well, mr weisselberg,
10:18
wait a minute, wait a minute, you pleaded
10:19
guilty to 15 felonies. you should, by all
10:22
rights, have a sentence that results in
10:25
you being imprisoned for the rest of
10:26
your life, but the prosecutors gave you a
10:29
sentence that could result in just 100
10:30
days,
10:31
with good time, and the prosecutor said
10:34
you don't even have to testify against
10:36
the big fish, 'you don't have to cooperate
10:38
with us,
10:39
you, mr weisselberg, can just set your own
10:41
terms. whatever you want.'
10:43
mr weiselberg ,you're going to say
10:45
anything those prosecutors want you to
10:47
say when you're up on that witness stand,
10:49
because the last thing you want to do is
10:50
jeopardize
10:52
that hundred-day deal,
10:54
that also says you don't have to
10:56
cooperate against donald trump."
10:58
and the prosecutors will come back with,
11:00
"no, no, we told you you have to tell the
11:02
truth." and i've done this a thousand
11:04
times myself. and we mean it. but that
11:07
doesn't mean the jury has to buy it.
11:10
i mean, weisselberg got such a sweetheart
11:11
deal, that any defense attorney worth his
11:14
or her salt, will cross-examine him on
11:17
how "the fact that you got that
11:19
sweetheart deal means you're going to
11:20
say anything the prosecutors want you to
11:23
say, because you don't want to lose that
11:24
deal, because let's face it, if you told
11:26
the prosecutors that your truthful
11:28
testimony would clear the trump
11:30
organization, they probably wouldn't give
11:32
you that sweetheart deal.
11:35
you knew what they wanted you to say." i'm
11:37
just spinning out the typical defense
11:39
cross examination.
11:41
the point is,
11:42
his promise to testify
11:45
against the trump organization --
11:47
just who weisselberg wants to
11:49
testify against, and nobody else --
11:52
really damages his credibility as a
11:54
trial witness. the other thing people say
11:56
is, "well, he's pleaded guilty to all these
11:59
crimes, so that means he can no longer
12:00
plead the fifth."
12:02
right? because when you plead guilty, that
12:04
extinguishes
12:06
your fifth amendment right against
12:07
self-incrimination, because your
12:09
statements can't be held against you.
12:11
you've already been convicted .you've
12:13
pleaded guilty, and you don't still
12:15
have a privilege against
12:17
self-incrimination, because your
12:18
testimony can't incriminate you, because
12:20
those charges are done.
12:22
here's the thing: as an academic exercise,
12:25
that's true. that's accurate.
12:27
but the reality is,
12:31
once he pleads guilty, and his fifth
12:33
amendment rights regarding those crimes
12:35
are over, done with, extinguished,
12:39
you can compel him to testify. you can
12:42
force him to go into a grand jury, or
12:44
take the stand at trial, and testify, and
12:46
he can't plead the fifth, but you can't
12:49
compel him to tell the truth.
12:52
he could still go into a grand jury, or
12:54
take the stand at trial, and lie to
12:56
protect donald trump. he's been doing a
12:58
pretty darn good job of protecting
13:01
donald trump. and alvin bragg has let him
13:04
get away with it.
13:06
so, as an academic discussion it's great
13:10
that he can't plead the fifth, but you
13:12
can't compel him to tell the truth
13:14
about the crimes of donald trump. and
13:16
look, he's already gotten away with 15
13:18
felonies: 100 days for 15 felonies -- that's
13:22
laughable. do you really think he would
13:24
care about a perjury charge
13:26
if he lied about donald trump, even
13:28
though he was compelled to testify, and
13:31
couldn't plead the fifth? i don't think
13:32
he would bat an eye at a perjury charge,
13:35
after he just got away,
13:37
in a very real sense, with going
13:39
unpunished, largely unpunished, for 15
13:42
felonies.
13:43
a 15-year criminal scheme to defraud the
13:47
taxpayers of new york city, new york
13:49
state, and though, he hasn't been charged
13:51
federally,
13:52
the u.s taxpayers.
13:56
now, please don't misunderstand me, 100
13:58
days in jail, in prison and detention of
14:01
any kind, is horrific.
14:03
i don't care if you're 75 years old, i
14:05
don't care if you're 18 years old, it's
14:06
horrific.
14:08
but,
14:09
it is still a sweetheart deal
14:12
by which
14:13
alan weisselberg was allowed to set the
14:16
terms.
14:17
and
14:18
alvin bragg
14:21
caved,
14:22
willingly gave him that sweetheart deal?
14:24
i don't know what's behind
14:26
it, but i sure as as heck hope we
14:28
find out.
14:31
and let me finish with a public service
14:32
announcement, friends, and that public
14:34
service announcement is
14:37
that
14:38
donald trump
14:40
launched an armed attack on the u.s
14:42
capitol to stop
14:44
the peaceful transfer of presidential
14:47
power,
14:48
just in case we have
14:51
forgotten about that,
14:53
lost sight of that, when we're dealing
14:56
with injustice in a manhattan courtroom,
14:59
and we're dealing with
15:00
another investigation into donald trump
15:02
stealing classified information from the
15:05
federal government, and concealing it at
15:07
his florida home, because there's a lot
15:09
going on right now, but
15:11
i bring you that public service
15:12
announcement just to stay
15:15
focused,
15:16
um, on the fact that donald trump tried
15:19
to
15:20
steal the presidency,
15:22
and try to overthrow our democracy.
15:25
yeah, that's still in play.
15:27
and he still needs to be held
15:28
accountable for that.
15:32
because justice
15:34
matters.
15:37
hopefully tomorrow will be a better day
15:39
friends on the justice front. please stay
15:41
safe, please stay tuned,
15:43
and i look forward to talking with you
15:44
all again
15:45
tomorrow.
15:48
[Music]

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[admin]

Appellate court exposes Bill Barr's lies about secret DOJ memo used to protect Trump from charges
by Glenn Kirschner
Aug 20, 2022



Recall that federal judge Reggie Walton found that former Attorney General Bill Barr spun the conclusions of the Mueller report, mischaracterized its findings, and announced that "Bill Barr lacks candor."

Now a federal appellate panel has ruled that Bill Barr also lied when he claimed that a secret memo compelled him to decline to charge Donald Trump with the obstruction of justice crimes documented by Bob Mueller's investigating into Trump-Russia coordination in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.

This video discusses the new court finding that a secret memo that Bill Barr mischaracterized must be released in its entirely.

Transcript

0:00
so former Attorney General Bill Barr is
0:04
the corrupt gift that just keeps on
0:07
giving.
0:08
wish we could return some of these gifts,
0:11
but a federal court just told us, once
0:15
again, that bill Barr is Unworthy of
0:19
belief.
0:21
let's talk about that,
0:22
because Justice matters.
0:32
[Music]
0:34
hey all. glenn kirschner
0:40
here. so former Attorney General Bill
0:44
Barr has been caught, again,
0:46
deceiving the court, and by extension
0:49
deceiving the American people.
0:52
now, before I go to the new Washington
0:54
Post reporting, let me set this one up,
0:56
because it's a little bit convoluted.
1:00
so, remember when Bill Barr lied to us
1:03
about the Mueller report?
1:05
federal court judge Reggie Walton said,
1:08
you know, "he lied; he deceived; he
1:10
dissembled; he mischaracterized." and he
1:13
said Bill Barr "lacks candor."
1:15
and remember, Bill Barr told us all, "no, no,
1:18
no obstruction. Donald Trump can't be
1:21
charged with any crimes."
1:23
well, it turns out that bill Barr
1:27
used as a basis to say, oh, he can't be
1:31
charged with any obstruction, a doj memo
1:34
that had been written.
1:36
and Bill Barr said, "it's a secret memo. I
1:39
can't show it to anybody. but trust me.
1:41
it's an analysis of, you know, the facts,
1:45
and the law, and it reaches the
1:46
conclusion that, well, Donald Trump just
1:48
can't be charged with obstructing
1:50
justice, with obstructing Bob Mueller's
1:53
probe of all things Trump Russia. but
1:56
just trust me."
1:57
well, there's an organization called "crew":
2:00
citizens for responsibility and ethics
2:04
in Washington, and they didn't trust Bill
2:06
Barr,
2:07
and they filed suit, Freedom of
2:09
Information Act, seeking this memo that
2:13
bill Barr said "we can't show you, but
2:16
trust me. it says Donald Trump can't be
2:19
charged with obstructing justice." against
2:22
that backdrop, here is the new reporting
2:26
from The Washington Post about how a
2:29
federal appeals court just smacked down
2:32
Bill Barr again.
2:35
headline: "court orders release of doj
2:39
memo on Trump obstruction in Mueller
2:42
probe." and that article begins:
2:45
"a federal appeals court has ordered the
2:48
release of a secret justice department
2:50
memo discussing whether president Donald
2:52
Trump obstructed the investigation into
2:55
Russian interference in the 2016
2:58
election.
3:00
the unanimous panel decision issued
3:02
Friday Echoes that of a lower Court
3:05
Judge, Amy Berman Jackson, Who last year
3:09
accused Bill Barr's justice department
3:11
of dishonesty in its justification for
3:16
keeping the memo hidden." now. I'm going to
3:18
take a pause, and we're going to jump
3:20
over to the earlier reporting about
3:24
Judge Amy Berman Jackson's ruling
3:27
slamming Bill Barr, accusing him of
3:30
dishonesty, and then we're going to go
3:33
back to this new reporting about how the
3:35
Appellate Court just upheld Judge Amy
3:39
Berman Jackson's ruling. so here is the
3:42
earlier Washington Post reporting:
3:44
headline: "judge blast's barr, justice
3:48
department for disingenuous handling of
3:51
secret Trump obstruction memo."
3:54
and that article reads in part:
3:57
"a federal judge has accused the justice
3:59
department, and then Attorney General
4:01
William Barr, of misleading the court ,and
4:04
the public, to hide how he decided that
4:08
President Donald Trump should not be
4:10
charged with obstructing special counsel
4:13
Robert Mueller's Russia investigation.
4:16
U.S District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of
4:19
Washington D.C.,
4:21
ordered the release Monday of a 2019
4:24
memo, prepared by the Department's office
4:26
of legal counsel.
4:28
barr, and a string of Justice Department
4:30
officials, had sought to keep the
4:33
memo secret asserting, 'it was part of the
4:37
Department's internal decision-making
4:39
process' before he selectively and
4:42
misleadingly announced the Mueller
4:45
reports findings that March. Judge Amy
4:49
Berman Jackson wrote in a blistering
4:51
opinion, after viewing the memo and other
4:54
evidence, that the Department's claims
4:57
are so inconsistent with evidence in the
5:00
record they are not worthy of credence."
5:04
so she ordered it released, but that
5:07
decision was appealed, and now
5:09
the Appellate Court just
5:12
sided with Judge Amy Berman Jackson,
5:15
and they also slammed Bill Barr. so let's
5:18
go back to the first Washington Post
5:21
reporting. I know it takes some time to
5:24
walk through this one,
5:26
and then we're going to recap after we
5:29
get through these two Washington Post
5:30
articles, and kind of put it all into
5:33
layman's terms.
5:35
back to the new Washington Post
5:37
reporting:
5:39
"a panel of three judges said that
5:42
whether or not there was bad faith, the
5:44
government created a misimpression, and
5:47
could not stop release under the Freedom
5:49
of Information Act.
5:51
the memo was written by two senior
5:54
Justice Department officials for then
5:56
Attorney General William Barr, who
5:59
subsequently told Congress that there
6:01
was not enough evidence to charge Trump
6:03
with obstruction of special counsel Bob
6:06
Mueller's inquiry. a redacted version was
6:10
released last year, but left under seal
6:13
the legal and factual analysis.
6:16
Department of Justice officials argued
6:19
that the document was protected because
6:21
it involved internal deliberations over
6:25
a prosecutorial decision." but friends.
6:27
that turned out to be untrue.
6:30
it had nothing to do with internal
6:33
decisions about a prosecutorial decision.
6:37
rather, "the discussion in the memo was
6:41
over how Barr would publicly
6:44
characterize the obstruction evidence
6:47
Mueller had assembled. the justice
6:49
department conceded on appeal" -- in other
6:53
words,
6:55
the memo was all about how Bill Barr
6:57
would spin it
6:58
to Congress, and to the American people.
7:03
the article continues:
7:05
"the Court's review of the memorandum
7:07
revealed that the department in fact
7:10
never considered bringing a charge of
7:14
obstruction against Donald Trump, the
7:16
panel wrote. instead, the memorandum
7:19
concerned a separate decision, that had
7:22
gone entirely unmentioned by the
7:24
government in its submissions to the
7:27
court,"
7:27
and that decision? "what if anything to
7:31
say to Congress and the public about the
7:35
Mueller report." in other words, how to
7:38
spin the Mueller report.
7:42
admittedly, friends, that is kind of a
7:45
convoluted tale, so let's do it again in
7:47
layman's speak:
7:49
Bob Mueller investigated Donald Trump,
7:51
and the Trump campaign, for contacts and
7:55
coordination with Russia, by which they
7:58
sought and obtained Russia's assistance
8:01
in the 2016 presidential election.
8:05
and Bob Mueller found quote, "substantial
8:10
evidence of obstruction by Trump."
8:13
but Bill Barr didn't care.
8:15
Bill Barr was going to protect Donald
8:17
Trump at all costs. so Bill Barr falsely
8:21
announced "no obstruction;
8:23
no evidence that Donald Trump obstructed
8:26
Justice; Donald Trump can't be charged
8:29
with any crime,"
8:31
and Bill Barr pointed to a secret memo,
8:34
a memo that he had some Department of
8:37
Justice lawyers draft up, and he claimed
8:39
"this memo was a detailed analysis of the
8:42
facts and the law, and led to only one
8:45
conclusion, that Donald Trump did nothing
8:47
wrong; no obstruction; he can't be charged
8:49
with any crime." and Bill Barr said, "just
8:52
trust me on this, because the Memo's
8:54
secret. we're not going to show it to
8:56
anybody, because it involves, you know,
8:59
prosecutorial deliberations."
9:02
well,
9:04
Judge Amy Berman Jackson figuratively
9:07
wrestled that secret memo away from Bill
9:10
Barr's Department of Justice.
9:12
turns out, it had no prosecutorial
9:17
discussions about the facts and the law,
9:20
and about whether Donald Trump committed
9:22
obstruction of justice, or he didn't.
9:24
rather,
9:26
the memo was all about how Bill Barr
9:30
could spin the Mueller report to
9:33
Congress, and to the American people, to
9:36
try to protect Donald Trump.
9:39
and that is why Judge Amy Berman Jackson
9:43
said, essentially, "Bill Barr is a great
9:46
big liar. he can't be credited." and a
9:52
three-judge Appellate Court just said
9:55
the same thing.
9:57
and they said, "give the entire memo over
10:01
to crew,
10:03
the organization that filed a Freedom of
10:07
Information Act request seeking that
10:10
memo." so now we see, once again, Bill Barr
10:14
is exposed
10:16
as deceiving Congress, deceiving the
10:19
American people, corruptly protecting
10:22
Donald Trump from being held accountable
10:25
for his crimes.
10:28
you know, I really don't want to hear
10:30
anything from Bill Barr on his
10:32
reputation Rehabilitation tour, where
10:35
he's now telling the January 6 committee,
10:38
perhaps telling a Federal grand jury, all
10:40
about Donald Trump's misdeeds, his crimes,
10:44
his corruption.
10:46
you know, the only way I'm willing to
10:48
listen to anything Bill Barr says,
10:50
is for him to be charged with his own
10:52
crimes, plead guilty, accept
10:54
responsibility, and then Bill, you can
10:57
talk, you can talk as a cooperating
10:59
Witness.
11:01
because frankly, that is the only way
11:03
anything Bill Barr says today
11:06
could be credited.
11:10
because Justice
11:12
matters.
11:15
friends, as always, please stay safe,
11:17
please stay tuned, and I look forward to
11:19
talking with you all again tomorrow.
11:23
[Music]

[admin]

‘Mr. Trump Went Through The Boxes Himself’
by Lawrence O'Donnell
MSNBC
Aug 22, 2022

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell reports on the breaking news from The New York Times that former President Donald Trump had over 300 documents at Mar-a-Lago and that he personally went through the boxes himself in 2021.

Transcript

0:02
>> THANK YOU RACHEL.
0:06
MR. TRUMP WENT THROUGH THE
0:09
BOXES HIMSELF.
0:11
THAT IS ONE OF THE LEGALLY
0:15
DEVASTATING LINES IN A NEW YORK
0:17
TIMES BREAKING NEWS REPORT
0:18
TONIGHT UNDER THE HEADLINE,
0:20
TRUMP HAD MORE THAN 300
0:23
CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS AT
0:24
MAR-A-LAGO.
0:24
DONALD TRUMP'S LIFE GETS WORSE
0:28
EVERY DAY AND TONIGHT HIS LIFE
0:31
GOT MUCH WORSE WITH THE
0:33
REVELATION IN THE NEW YORK
0:34
TIMES THAT DONALD TRUMP HIMSELF
0:36
WENT THROUGH ALL OF THE BOXES
0:38
OF DOCUMENTS THAT HE WAS
0:40
ILLEGALLY POSSESSING AND
0:42
CONCEALING AT HIS FLORIDA HOME.
0:46
AND THIS IS THE KIND OF
0:48
REPORTING THAT INDICATES THAT
0:50
DONALD TRUMP'S LEGAL LIFE IS
0:52
GOING TO GET MUCH, MUCH WORSE
0:55
AS THE STORY KEEPS MOVING
0:57
FORWARD.
0:57
A TEAM OF INVESTIGATORS FOR THE
1:01
NEW YORK TIMES REPORT THAT THE
1:02
GOVERNMENT HAS RETRIEVED MORE
1:04
THAN 300 CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS
1:07
FROM DONALD TRUMP'S FLORIDA
1:09
HOME IN THREE DIFFERENT
1:10
RETRIEVAL'S FROM MAR-A-LAGO,
1:13
INCLUDING THE THIRD AND FINAL
1:15
RETRIEVAL WHICH WAS EXECUTED BY
1:17
THE FBI WITH SEARCH WARRANT
1:21
ISSUED BY A JUDGE WHO SAID
1:22
TODAY THAT HE ISSUED THAT
1:25
SEARCH WARRANT BECAUSE HE FOUND
1:28
QUOTE, PROBABLE CAUSE THAT
1:31
EVIDENCE OF MULTIPLE FEDERAL
1:33
CRIMES WOULD BE FOUND AT THE
1:36
PREMISES.
1:37
THE TIMES REPORTS QUOTE, THE
1:40
INITIAL BATCH OF DOCUMENTS
1:42
RETRIEVED BY THE NATIONAL
1:43
ARCHIVES FROM FORMER PRESIDENT
1:45
DONALD J TRUMP IN JANUARY
1:47
INCLUDED MORE THAN 150 MARKED
1:49
AS CLASSIFIED, A NUMBER THAT
1:51
IGNITED INTENSE CONCERN AT THE
1:54
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT.
1:54
AND HELPED TRIGGER THE CRIMINAL
1:57
INVESTIGATION THAT LED FBI
1:59
AGENTS TO SWOOP INTO MAR-A-LAGO
2:01
THIS MONTH SEEKING TO RECOVER
2:03
MORE, MULTIPLE PEOPLE BRIEFED
2:05
ON THE MATTER SAID.
2:07
BUT BEFORE ANYONE FROM THE
2:10
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT WENT TO
2:12
MAR-A-LAGO AND SEARCHED FOR
2:14
DOCUMENTS, THE TIMES REPORTS,
2:17
MR. TRUMP WENT THROUGH THE
2:18
BOXES HIMSELF IN LATE 2020,
2:23
ACCORDING TO MULTIPLE PEOPLE
2:26
BRIEFED ON HIS EFFORTS BEFORE
2:28
TURNING THEM OVER.
2:28
SO THE TIMES IS REPORTING THAT
2:31
MULTIPLE PEOPLE WITNESSES,
2:34
MULTIPLE WITNESSES KNOW THAT
2:36
DONALD TRUMP WENT THROUGH THE
2:38
BOXES OF CLASSIFIED MATERIAL
2:41
HIMSELF LAST YEAR IN 2021.
2:43
AND OBVIOUSLY DONALD TRUMP
2:45
DECIDED TO KEEP THOSE BOXES.
2:47
LAST WEEK WE LEARNED THAT WHEN
2:50
THE LAWYERS FOR DONALD TRUMP
2:52
TRIED TO GET HIM TO RETURN THAT
2:54
MATERIAL, HE DELIVERED THE NOW
2:55
FAMOUS LINE, IT'S NOT THERE'S,
2:57
IT'S MINE.
2:57
THE TWO LAWYERS WHO DONALD
2:59
TRUMP AND MADE HIS OFFICIAL
3:01
REPRESENTATIVES ON THIS MATTER
3:02
OR FORMER WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL
3:04
PAT CIPOLLONE FORMER WHITE
3:06
HOUSE DEPUTY COUNSEL PATRICK
3:08
PHILBIN.
3:08
THIS YEAR DONALD TRUMP REMOVED
3:11
THEM AS HIS OFFICIAL
3:13
REPRESENTATIVES IN DEALING WITH
3:15
THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND
3:17
PERHAPS THEN THERE MAY HAVE
3:19
BEEN NO ONE TELLING DONALD
3:22
TRUMP THAT HE HAD TO COMPLY
3:23
WITH THE LAW.
3:24
AFTER THE FIRST BATCH OF 150
3:27
DOCUMENTS MARKED AS CLASSIFIED
3:28
WERE REMOVED FROM DONALD
3:30
TRUMP'S FLORIDA HOME IN JANUARY,
3:33
FEDERAL PROSECUTORS AND FBI
3:35
AGENTS VISITED DONALD TRUMP'S
3:36
HOME IN JUNE, WENT ACCORDING TO
3:39
THE NEW YORK TIMES REPORT
3:41
TONIGHT AIDES TO MR. TRUMP
3:43
TURNED OVER A FEW DOZEN
3:45
ADDITIONAL SENSITIVE DOCUMENTS
3:47
DURING A VISIT TO MAR-A-LAGO BY
3:49
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT OFFICIALS IN
3:50
EARLY JUNE.
3:51
THE TWO TRUMP LAWYERS WHO DEALT
3:54
WITH THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
3:56
INVESTIGATORS WHO WENT TO
3:57
MAR-A-LAGO IN JUNE ARE
4:00
POTENTIALLY TONIGHT IN VERY
4:02
SERIOUS LEGAL TROUBLE OF THEIR
4:05
OWN BASED ON THE BREAKING NEWS
4:08
REPORTING IN THE NEW YORK TIMES
4:09
TONIGHT.
4:10
THIS DESCRIBES FALSE ASSURANCES
4:14
THAT THOSE TWO MORE LAWYERS
4:17
PROVIDED TO THE JUSTICE
4:18
DEPARTMENT IN WRITING.
4:18
THE TIMES REPORTS, ON JUNE 3RD
4:22
JAY BRAT, THE CHIEF OF THE
4:25
COUNTERESPIONAGE SECTION OF THE
4:26
NATIONAL SECURITY DIVISION OF
4:27
THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT WENT TO
4:29
MAR-A-LAGO TO MEET WITH TWO OF
4:30
MR. TRUMP'S LAWYERS, EVAN
4:33
CORCORAN, AND CHRISTINA BOB,
4:35
AND RETRIEVE ANY REMAINING
4:37
CLASSIFIED MATERIAL TO SATISFY
4:39
THE SUPPORT PEÑA.
4:40
MR. CORCORAN WENT THROUGH THE
4:42
BOXES HIMSELF TO IDENTIFY
4:45
CLASSIFIED MATERIAL BEFOREHAND,
4:47
ACCORDING TO TWO PEOPLE
4:48
FAMILIAR WITH HIS EFFORTS.
4:49
MR. CORCORAN SHOWED MR. BRAT
4:52
THE BASEMENT STORAGE ROOM WHERE
4:54
HE SAID THE REMAINING MATERIAL
4:55
HAD BEEN KEPT.
4:57
MR. TRUMP BRIEFLY CAME TO SEE
5:01
THE INVESTIGATORS DURING THE
5:03
VISIT.
5:06
MR. BRATT AND THE AGENTS
5:09
ADJOINING WERE GIVEN AS CHIEF
5:10
OF CLASSIFIED MATERIAL
5:11
ACCORDING TO PEOPLE FAMILIAR
5:12
WITH THE MEETING.
5:13
MR. CORCORAN THEN DRAFTED A
5:15
STATEMENT, WHICH MS. BOB WHO IS
5:18
SAID TO BE THE CUSTODIAN OF THE
5:20
DOCUMENTS SIGNED.
5:23
IT ASSERTED THAT TO THE BEST OF
5:24
HER KNOWLEDGE, ALL CLASSIFIED
5:27
MATERIAL THAT WAS THERE HAD
5:28
BEEN RETURNED, ACCORDING TO TWO
5:31
PEOPLE FAMILIAR WITH THE
5:33
STATEMENT.
5:33
THE STATEMENT WASN'T TRUE.
5:37
IT WAS NOT TRUE.
5:41
CHRISTINA BOBB SIGNED HER NAME
5:46
TO IT AND CORCORAN DRAFTED A
5:49
STATEMENT.
5:49
THEY DRAFTED A STATEMENT THERE
5:50
WAS NOT TRUE.
5:53
CHRISTINA BOBB SIGNED AN UNTRUE
5:55
STATEMENT IN A WRITTEN
5:57
COMMUNICATION WITH THE JUSTICE
5:58
DEPARTMENT WHERE IT IS A CRIME
6:00
TO LIE TO THE FBI.
6:03
THE TIMES GOES ON TO EXPLAIN
6:05
WHY THE INVESTIGATION DIDN'T
6:07
AND THERE.
6:08
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT OFFICIALS
6:10
HAD JUST VISITED MAR-A-LAGO
6:12
THEMSELVES.
6:12
THEY HAD BEEN USHERED IN
6:14
WRITING BY THE TRUMP LAWYERS
6:15
WITH THAT DOCUMENTS SIGNED BY
6:18
CHRISTINA BOBB THAT THE JUSTICE
6:20
DEPARTMENT WAS NOW IN
6:21
POSSESSION OF ALL OF THE
6:23
CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS THAT WERE
6:24
THERE.
6:24
BUT HERE IS WHAT HAPPENED NEXT.
6:27
SOON AFTER THAT VISIT,
6:30
INVESTIGATORS WHO WERE
6:31
INTERVIEWING SEVERAL PEOPLE OF
6:32
MR. TRUMP CIRCLE ABOUT THE
6:34
DOCUMENTS, CAME TO BELIEVE THAT
6:36
THERE WERE OTHER PRESIDENTIAL
6:38
RECORDS THAT HAD NOT BEEN
6:39
TURNED OVER, ACCORDING TO THE
6:41
PEOPLE FAMILIAR WITH THE
6:42
MATTER.
6:42
ON JUNE 22ND, THE JUSTICE
6:46
DEPARTMENT SUBPOENAED THE TRUMP
6:48
ORGANIZATION FOR MAR-A-LAGO'S
6:50
SECURITY FOOTAGE.
6:50
IT REVEALED PEOPLE MOVING BOXES
6:52
IN AND OUT, AND IN SOME CASES
6:55
APPEARING TO CHANGE THE
6:56
CONTAINERS SOME DOCUMENTS WERE
6:58
HELD IN.
7:00
A EVERY ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE IN
7:02
THOSE VIDEOS, ABOUT MOVING
7:05
THOSE BOXES IS GOING TO BE
7:07
QUESTIONED UNDER OATH BY THE
7:10
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ABOUT
7:11
EXACTLY WHAT THEY WERE DOING
7:12
WITH THOSE BOXES.
7:13
BUT THAT VIDEO SEEMS TO HAVE
7:16
PLAYED A STRONG ROLE IN
7:18
CONVINCING THE JUSTICE
7:19
DEPARTMENT AND ATTORNEY GENERAL
7:21
MERRICK GARLAND THAT THEY WOULD
7:22
NEED A SEARCH WARRANT TO GET
7:25
MORE CLASSIFIED MATERIAL FROM
7:27
DONALD TRUMP'S HOME.
7:28
AND WHEN THE FBI COMPLETED THE
7:32
SEARCH THAT THE SEARCH WARRANT
7:35
ALLOWED THEM TO CONDUCT ON
7:37
AUGUST 8TH, THE NEW YORK TIMES
7:39
REPORTS, OFFICIALS LEFT WITH 26
7:42
BOXES, INCLUDING 11 SETS OF
7:44
MATERIAL MARKED AS CLASSIFIED,
7:48
COMPRISING SCORES OF ADDITIONAL
7:51
DOCUMENTS.
7:51
ONE SET AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF
7:55
CLASSIFICATION, TOP SECRET
7:56
SLASH SENSITIVE COMPARTMENTED
8:01
INFORMATION.
8:01
DONALD TRUMP THE TIME REPORTS,
8:05
WENT THROUGH THE BOXES HIMSELF
8:07
AT THE END OF LAST YEAR,
8:09
WITHHELD THAT INFORMATION WHEN
8:11
THE FIRST BATCH OF DOCUMENTS
8:13
WAS RETURNED TO THE NATIONAL
8:15
ARCHIVES IN JANUARY AND DONALD
8:17
TRUMP CONTINUED TO WITHHOLD
8:19
THAT INFORMATION WHEN ANOTHER
8:22
BATCH OF DOCUMENTS WAS HANDED
8:23
OVER TO THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
8:25
IN JUNE.
8:25
AND WHEN THE FBI SHOWED UP,
8:28
WITH A SEARCH WARRANT IN AUGUST,
8:31
DONALD TRUMP WAS STILL HOLDING
8:33
ON TO 11 SETS OF MATERIAL
8:37
MARKED HAS CLASSIFY COMPRISING
8:40
SCORES OF ADDITIONAL DOCUMENTS,
8:42
ONE SET HAD THE HIGHEST LEVEL
8:43
OF CLASSIFICATION, TOP SECRET
8:45
SENSITIVE COMPARTMENTED
8:47
INFORMATION.
8:47
THAT'S WHAT DONALD TRUMP WAS
8:50
HOLDING ON TO WHEN THE FBI
8:53
ARRIVED AT HIS HOME.
8:56
THE TIMES REPORTS, THE FBI
8:58
AGENTS WHO CONDUCTED THE SEARCH
8:59
FOUND THE ADDITIONAL DOCUMENTS
9:00
IN THE STORAGE AREA IN THE
9:02
BASEMENT OF MAR-A-LAGO, AS WELL
9:04
AS IN A CONTAINER IN A CLOSET
IN MR. TRUMP'S OFFICE, THE PEOPLE SAID.

**************************

Trump Stashed, Oh, Only 300 Classified Documents at Mar-a-Lago: Report
Embattled former president filed a lawsuit earlier Monday requesting a federal watchdog be appointed to further oversee the investigation into his hoarding of state secrets
by Kat Bouza
Rolling Stone
AUGUST 22, 2022

THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT has recovered over 300 classified documents from the Florida estate of former President Donald Trump since he left office, with at least half of the documents recovered during the National Archives’ initial search of Trump’s Palm Beach compound in January of this year.

According to The New York Times, the discovery of the initial batch of classified materials by the agency tasked with documenting and preserving historical records prompted Trump officials to relinquish an additional unknown number of materials to the government in June, and precipitated the federal raid on Mar-a-Largo earlier this month, during which additional documents were seized by the FBI. At least one box of retrieved materials were designated with the federal government’s highest level of classification.

News of the extent of Trump’s stash of state secrets comes just hours after the former president filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent the Department of Justice from “further review of seized materials” claiming “the integrity of these documents is important not only to [Trump] but also to the institution of the Presidency.” In the filing, Trump also requests that a federal watchdog — a so-called “special master” — be appointed to further oversee the Mar-a-Lago investigation.

“The Government has refused to provide President Trump with any reason for the unprecedented, general search of his home. To date, the Government has failed to legitimize its historic decision to raid the home of a President who had been fully cooperative,” the lawsuit states. “The documents seized at Mar-a-Lago on August 8, 2022, were seized from President Trump and were created during his term as President. Accordingly, the documents are ‘presumptively privileged’ until proven otherwise… Only an evaluation by a neutral reviewer, a Special Master, can secure the sanctity of these privileged materials.”

In February, the National Archives confirmed its January search uncovered a 15 boxes containing material allegedly removed from the White House in violation of the Presidential Records Act — among which included Trump’s self-described “love letters” to North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. A source close to the matter told the Times that this initial batch of documents also contained documents from the CIA, FBI and the National Security Agency “spanning a variety of topics of national security interest.” Sources also previously revealed to the media Trump kept sensitive materials relating to nuclear weapons at Mar-a-Lago — an assertion that Trump quickly dismissed as a “hoax,” doubling down on claims that the ongoing investigation into his possession of classified materials is merely a partisan witch-hunt orchestrated by “Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024.”

The Justice Department’s suspicions that additional classified material remained at Mar-a-Lago following the National Archives search led federal authorities to issue a subpoena in May seeking the return of additional documents. After meeting with government officials to hand over said materials, two of Trump’s lawyers — including Christina Bobb, a former anchor for the militantly right-wing, pro-Trump One America News Network — signed a statement on June 3 stating all unauthorized documents at Mar-a-Lago had been returned to federal authorities, the Times reported.

However, subsequent review of Mar-a-Lago security footage by the Justice Department following the June 3 statement showed individuals clearly shuttling previously seized boxes of classified material throughout club grounds, prompting additional witness interviews which ultimately led to the August 8 FBI raid of the estate. The unsealed federal search warrant related to that latest search revealed the Justice Department is investigating the embattled former president for possible violations of the Espionage Act.

Since the August 8 raid on Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s paranoia against both the federal government and his dwindling circle of sycophants has ramped up dramatically. A Rolling Stone report from early August revealed the ex-president recently became increasingly concerned that someone in his inner circle could be “wearing a wire” or that his personal communications were under surveillance “by Biden.” The investigation also led several right-wing politicians to demand the “defunding” of the FBI and the Department of Justice for “weaponizing” federal agencies.

“When I worked for him, it was an everyday obsession [about] who was leaking, who was cooperating with what. He’d regularly ask me and others, ‘Do you think I can trust this person?’ or ‘Do you trust this person?’ or tell me to ‘go find the leaker,’ Stephanie Grisham, a former senior Trump aide, told Rolling Stone. “Trump demands total loyalty, and yet he turns on people at a moment’s notice. And he’s now in this situation where he and his people are wondering who among them could be giving some of his most closely held information to the FBI.”

[admin]

New Reporting Paints Trump In Incriminating Role In Sensitive Documents Scandal
by Alex Wagner
MSNBC
Aug 23, 2022

Carol Leonnig, investigative reporter for the Washington Post, talks with Alex Wagner about new reporting that shows the extent, and sometimes even exclusivity of Donald Trump's role in misappropriating sensitive documents from the White House after he was voted out of office.



Transcript

0:00
last night we learned from the new york
0:01
times that the national archives
0:03
recovered more than 150 classified
0:06
documents from trump's florida home in
0:07
january which were squirreled away in 15
0:10
boxes of documents we also learned that
0:12
trump personally went through those
0:14
documents before he turned them over
0:17
in a bid to somehow help the former
0:19
president trump right-wing media ally
0:21
john solomon late last night published a
0:24
letter from the national archives to one
0:26
of trump's lawyers it's dated may 10th
0:29
now solomon hyped this letter as
0:31
evidence that somehow biden had sicked
0:33
the fbi on trump but as it turns out
0:37
solomon was really sort of shooting
0:38
himself or rather donald trump in the
0:40
foot
0:42
for starters this may letter from the
0:44
national archives confirms the new york
0:46
times reporting that over 100 documents
0:48
retrieved by the government in january
0:50
from mar-a-lago that they were marked
0:51
classified
0:53
the national archivist details that
0:55
specifically it was over 700 pages of
0:58
classified information just hanging out
1:00
at mar-a-lago
1:02
included in some of these were documents
1:04
with some of the very highest levels of
1:05
classification including special access
1:08
program materials which even if you have
1:10
top security clearance you still need
1:12
additional clearance to see that kind of
1:14
document
1:16
the letter again the letter somehow
1:18
meant to exonerate trump and implicate
1:20
biden it also confirms that trump and
1:22
his crew had been dragging their feet
1:24
for weeks asserting bogus claims of
1:27
executive privilege in an attempt to
1:29
delay the seized documents from being
1:31
handed over to the justice department
1:34
so while the archives retrieved the
1:35
boxes of documents in january the fbi
1:38
and the doj didn't get access to the
1:41
contents of those boxes until the month
1:43
of may
1:45
donald trump clearly has a different
1:46
definition of cooperation than most of
1:49
us do
1:50
but that is not all
1:52
in june when the justice department
1:53
officials went to mar-a-lago to ask
1:55
donald trump hey are there any more
1:56
classified documents lying around
1:59
trump's former crossfit lawyer
2:01
reportedly signed a statement saying
2:03
that trump had handed over all those
2:04
documents she signed a statement
2:06
affirming yes that is it nothing else to
2:09
see here folks
2:10
but even after that june visit even
2:13
after trump's attorney swore there were
2:15
no more classified documents in
2:16
mar-a-lago double pinky swear
2:19
the justice department wasn't convinced
2:21
so on august 8th the fbi executed a
2:23
search warrant where they found
2:26
you guessed it more documents at
2:28
mar-a-lago marked top secret
2:31
the new york times reported lot late
2:33
last night that in fact federal agents
2:35
in total have now retrieved over 300
2:38
classified documents which is hundreds
2:40
and hundreds of pages of classified
2:42
material from mar-a-lago
2:44
that record of obfuscation and foot
2:47
dragging and false statements is
2:48
apparently donald trump's definition of
2:50
complete cooperation
2:53
and we have breaking news tonight about
2:55
that supposed cooperation the washington
2:58
post reports what happened when archives
3:00
first received the documents in january
3:03
quote when archives employees began
3:05
opening up and sifting through the
3:07
material they noticed an immediate
3:08
problem the boxes arrived without any
3:11
kind of logs or inventories to describe
3:13
their content according to a person
3:15
familiar with the recovery instead they
3:17
contained a hodgepodge of documents
3:19
including some that didn't even come
3:21
from trump's time in the white house
3:23
but some of the white house records had
3:24
obvious markings indicating they were
3:26
classified
3:28
now nbc news has not yet confirmed this
3:30
reporting the washington post report
3:32
continues to chronicle how the fbi
3:34
conducted its investigation and just how
3:37
just precisely how involved donald trump
3:40
was personally with overseeing the
3:42
documents
3:43
quote as the fight with the archives
3:45
came to an uneasy conclusion the fbi
3:48
proceeded with interviews with others in
3:50
trump's orbit including vales and former
3:52
white house staffers agents were told
3:55
that trump was a pac rat who had been
3:57
personally overseeing his collection of
3:59
white house records since even before
4:01
leaving washington had had and had been
4:03
reluctant to return anything
4:06
the fbi became increasingly convinced
4:08
that the former president continued to
4:10
hold classified documents in florida it
4:12
could not be determined who was involved
4:14
with packing the boxes at mar-a-lago or
4:17
why some white house documents were not
4:18
sent to the archives though people
4:20
familiar with the episode said trump
4:22
oversaw the process himself
4:24
and did so with great secrecy declining
4:28
to show some items even to his top aides
4:32
some material recovered in the search is
4:34
considered extraordinarily sensitive
4:36
because it could reveal carefully
4:37
guarded secrets about u.s intelligence
4:40
gathering methods one of them said the
4:42
information is among the most sensitive
4:44
secrets we hold
4:46
around that time trump attorneys evan
4:49
corcoran and christina bob together
4:50
provided the justice department with a
4:52
written assurance about trump having
4:54
returned classified materials a person
4:56
familiar with the matter said the person
4:58
did not provide the specific wording of
4:59
the letter which was signed by bob a
5:02
person familiar with the matter said the
5:03
document is of interest to the fbi which
5:06
is investigating the veracity of its
5:08
claims joining us now is washington post
5:11
national reporter carol lenning who is
5:13
bylined on the story tonight carol thank
5:15
you so much for being here it is
5:17
breaking and it is
5:19
it is explosive i think the first thing
5:21
that at least grabbed me in reading this
5:23
article is just how deeply the former
5:26
president appears to have been in
5:28
selecting these documents what more can
5:30
you tell us about that
5:34
well what's clear in the both the
5:37
interviews we've done with sources and
5:39
also as revealed in a lot of new records
5:42
and letters that are coming out is that
5:44
the president was very involved the
5:46
former president was very involved in at
5:49
the last minute hastily and chaotically
5:52
packing up his his documents that he
5:55
thought were quote-unquote his to and
5:57
arranging for them to be taken to
5:59
mar-a-lago his private club and
6:01
part-time residents and that also
6:03
importantly alex despite the government
6:07
despite the the former president's claim
6:09
that all he's done has been cooperative
6:11
what we found is that
6:13
week after week he was the person
6:16
resisting providing records he was the
6:19
person along with his lawyers asking for
6:22
delay in allowing the fbi, for example, to
6:25
look over the classified records that
6:28
they found --
6:30
to their horror, to their shock --
6:32
in a group of 15 boxes of records that
6:35
they retrieved from mar-a-lago. and so
6:38
the president is really the former
6:40
president is very very much at the
6:42
center of this drama and now his own
6:46
um advisers legal and otherwise
6:50
are growing increasingly concerned, and
6:53
have been since june, that this is a
6:56
criminal
6:57
investigation in which the former
6:59
president is in legal jeopardy
7:01
ultimately of his own making. that if,
7:04
perhaps, he had turned over the records
7:06
willingly, and and forthrightly, right
7:09
away in january, or in decembe,r or in the
7:11
fall of 2021, all of these times that it
7:15
was asked for, that it might not have
7:17
morphed into a criminal investigation.
7:20
looking at the willful retention of
7:24
some of the highest and most sensitive
7:26
secrets our government holds
7:28
yeah i think we should focus on that a
7:30
little bit because this isn't like a
7:31
former president sitting at his kitchen
7:33
table leafing through memorabilia that
7:35
he mistakenly brought home right i mean
7:37
you you specifically say in the story
7:39
that he was going through these
7:40
documents with quote great secrecy
7:43
declining to show some items even to top
7:45
aides
7:46
and what are we talking about carol i
7:48
mean the some of the most sensitive
7:50
secrets
7:51
we hold
7:52
can you talk more about that? and just
7:55
the amount of, i mean not only the
7:57
recognition of that among the
8:00
people reporting on this story, but
8:01
within the trump circle, it sounds like
8:04
nobody really wanted to touch this case
8:05
with a 10-foot pole
8:09
oh such a good point and i promise we
8:12
will circle back to that alex about the
8:14
10-foot pole that a lot of people were
8:16
avoiding taking hold of um so your first
8:19
question about the sensitivity of this
8:21
material as described in the inventory
8:24
some of this material is top secret
8:27
secure compartmented information that
8:29
means that people have to as you
8:31
described earlier so well
8:33
people
8:34
who are in government have to have a
8:36
absolute reason to know
8:38
and access this information as part of
8:40
their job it has to be somebody who's
8:42
incredibly trustworthy and has this very
8:45
high security clearance and usually
8:47
secure compartmented information
8:50
involves intelligence gathering methods
8:52
the records that were seized on august
8:56
8th just as the fbi and the department
8:59
of justice feared
9:01
were some of those holiest of holy kinds
9:04
of records that if shared
9:06
indiscriminately or handled carelessly
9:09
in a private restaurant club
9:13
if ever on if other if ever disclosed
9:17
would cause immediate
9:19
grave danger to national security
9:21
because it would reveal how the us
9:24
gathers the intelligence that he that it
9:26
has that includes for example you know
9:30
how
9:31
which allies provide us special
9:33
intelligence that they don't share with
9:35
others
9:36
that includes for example uh
9:39
covert programs that we have that gather
9:41
intelligence and if those details were
9:44
revealed to a foreign adversary
9:46
our chances of protecting national
9:48
security would be greatly diminished
9:51
grave threats now you asked that good
9:54
question about people who during this
9:56
period who worked for donald trump or
9:58
were in the trump orbit trying to avoid
10:01
being involved in this case
10:03
starting in the fall of 2021 donald
10:06
trump was resisting turning over records
10:08
he believed were quote unquote mine
10:11
meaning his
10:12
and the archives knew
10:15
that he had a lot of records the things
10:17
were missing that they needed them
10:20
eventually donald trump's team turned
10:22
over 15 boxes of records the shocker for
10:25
people who had previously worked in
10:28
president trump's white house counsel's
10:30
office was that those records included
10:33
highly classified materials when they
10:36
were notified in particular deputy white
10:38
house counsel patrick philbin when he
10:40
was notified in april that the national
10:43
archives found that there was classified
10:45
information in these documents he was
10:48
stunned and
10:50
he was being asked at that time to help
10:53
team trump review the records to go up
10:56
to the national archives and review what
10:58
had been uh turned over and figure out
11:00
what's in what are in these boxes which
11:02
you would think they would have looked
11:04
before
11:05
but patrick philbin and others backed
11:07
away from this request by team trump
11:10
and pretty soon the fbi was knocking on
11:13
their doors asking the deputy white
11:15
house counsels
11:16
we need to interview you you're now a
11:19
subject witness you may be a witness for
11:21
us about what's going on in this
11:24
withholding of what appear to be
11:26
incredibly sensitive documents
11:29
at this point can you really blame any
11:31
lawyer who doesn't want to work for
11:33
donald trump carol lenning washington
11:35
post national reporter thank you so much
11:37
for joining us this evening and with
11:39
that breaking news to boot
11:48
[Music]
12:00
you

[admin]

‘This Is A Damning Letter’: Attorney Baffled By Trump Team’s Decision To Release Archives Letter
by Lawrence O'Donnell
MSNBC
Aug 23, 2022

I write in response to your letters of April 29, 2022, and May 1, 2022, requesting that the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) further delay the disclosure to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the records that were the subject of our April 12, 2022 notification …

NARA had ongoing communications with the former President’s representatives throughout 2021… which resulted in the transfer of 15 boxes of records to NARA in January 2022… 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. On April 11, 2022, the White House Counsel’s Office—affirming a request from the Department of Justice supported by an FBI letterhead memorandum—formally transmitted a request that NARA provide the FBI access to the 15 boxes for its review within seven days, with the possibility that the FBI might request copies of specific documents following its review of the boxes…

[T]he Presidential Records Act (PRA) generally restricts access to Presidential records in NARA’s custody for several years after the conclusion of a President’s tenure in office, the statute further provides that, “subject to any rights, defenses, or privileges which the United States or any agency or person may invoke,… if such records contain information that is needed for the conduct of current business of the incumbent President’s office" … Those conditions are satisfied here. As the Department of Justice’s National Security Division explained to you on April 29, 2022:

There are important national security interests in the FBI and others in the Intelligence Community getting access to these materials ... among the materials in the boxes are over 100 documents with classification markings, comprising more than 700 pages. Some include the highest levels of classification, including Special Access Program (SAP) materials … for purposes of our ongoing criminal investigation, but the Executive Branch must also conduct an assessment of the potential damage resulting…and take any necessary remedial steps…

We advised you in writing on April 12 that, “in light of the urgency of this request,” we planned to “provid[e] access to the FBI next week,” i.e., the week of April 18… In response to a request from another representative of the former President, the White House Counsel’s Office acquiesced in an extension of the production date to April 29…

It has now been four weeks since we first informed you of our intent to provide the FBI access to the boxes… Notwithstanding the urgency conveyed by the Department of Justice and the reasonable extension afforded to the former President, your April 29 letter asks for additional time for you to review the materials in the boxes “in order to ascertain whether any specific document is subject to privilege,” and then to consult with the former President “so that he may personally make any decision to assert a claim of constitutionally based privilege.”…

President Biden defers to my determination, in consultation with the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, regarding whether or not I should uphold the former President’s purported “protective assertion of executive privilege.”…

The Assistant Attorney General has advised me that there is no precedent for an assertion of executive privilege by a former President against an incumbent President to prevent the latter from obtaining from NARA Presidential records belonging to the Federal Government where “such records contain information that is needed for the conduct of current business of the incumbent President’s office and that is not otherwise available.”…

[A] former President may not successfully assert executive privilege “against the very Executive Branch in whose name the privilege is invoked.”… [A]n “incumbent President should not be dependent on happenstance or the whim of a prior President when he seeks access to records of past decisions that define or channel current governmental obligations.”…

The question in this case is not a close one. The Executive Branch here is seeking access to records belonging to, and in the custody of, the Federal Government itself, not only in order to investigate whether those records were handled in an unlawful manner but also, as the National Security Division explained, to “conduct an assessment of the potential damage resulting from the apparent manner in which these materials were stored and transported and take any necessary remedial steps.” … [T]here is no reason to believe such reviews could “adversely affect the ability of future Presidents to obtain the candid advice necessary for effective decisionmaking.” … Ensuring that classified information is appropriately protected, and taking any necessary remedial action if it was not, are steps essential to preserving the ability of future Presidents to “receive the full and frank submissions of facts and opinions upon which effective discharge of [their] duties depends.” …

Because an assertion of executive privilege against the incumbent President under these circumstances would not be viable, it follows that there is no basis for the former President to make a “protective assertion of executive privilege”…

[T]here is no realistic basis that the requested delay would result in a viable assertion of executive privilege against the incumbent President that would prevent disclosure of records for the purposes of the reviews described above. Accordingly, the only end that would be served by upholding the “protective” assertion here would be to delay those very important reviews…

[T]here is no reason to grant your request for a further delay before the FBI and others in the Intelligence Community begin their reviews. Accordingly, NARA will provide the FBI access to the records in question, as requested by the incumbent President, beginning as early as Thursday, May 12, 2022…

[T]he former President’s designated representatives can review the records, subject to obtaining the appropriate level of security clearance.

-- Full text of National Archives letter to Trump on classified documents

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell speaks to national security attorney Mark Zaid, former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner, and former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman about the decision by Donald Trump and his allies to release a letter they received from the National Archives that described the back and forth over the over 700 government documents that were taken to Mar-a-Lago at the end of Trump’s presidency.



Transcript

0:00
[lawrence o'donnell] mark, let me begin with you. from the
0:02
defense attorney's perspective, let's
0:04
assume that
0:06
somehow, donald trump found his way to
0:09
a competent criminal defense attorney in
0:11
this situation. uh, first of all, would you
0:16
have made that letter public? and then
0:18
secondly,
0:19
what does that letter tell you
0:22
about the challenges
0:24
facing donald trump's defense?
0:28
[mark zaid] i didn't understand from the moment i
0:30
read the letter,
0:31
why this was being released by the trump
0:35
team! you know, as you and
0:38
others have been describing, not by the
0:40
legal team, but by his supporters. like
0:42
john solomon. there's nothing in this
0:45
letter that -- as you've just laid out -- that
0:49
puts the president in any positive light
0:52
whatsoever. i don't particularly get
0:55
it. i agree with the legal analysis
0:57
that's in this letter. i will tell you, i
0:59
have worked with the national archives
1:01
many times over the years. i have helped
1:03
them recover stolen property. i have sued
1:05
the national archives many times. in fact,
1:08
i think i'm in
1:09
a couple of current lawsuits against
1:10
them now.
1:11
their top leadership
1:13
that has been there for many years, are
1:15
experts on classification. in fact, a
1:18
former classification czar is in the
1:21
leadership. their general counsel,
1:23
mentioned in the letter, has been there
1:24
for decades. these are people who know
1:28
what they are doing. they are neutral.
1:30
they are non-partisan. this is a damning
1:33
letter against president trump and his
1:36
legal team.
1:37
[lawrence o'donnell] uh, glenn kirschner -- so we've heard from the
1:39
defense.
1:42
that's as good a defense lawyer as you
1:44
can get. and he's not seeing exactly
1:46
where you go with this on the trump
1:48
defense side.
1:51
[glenn kirschner] yeah, there really is nowhere to go. there
1:53
is no safe haven for donald trump. um, no
1:57
matter what his attorneys try to throw
1:59
into the mix, lawrence, it only makes
2:01
matters worse. and you know as bad as
2:04
that letter from the national archives
2:06
is for him because it, you know, discloses
2:09
that there are some of our most
2:11
important national secrets that
2:14
apparently were residing at
2:16
mar-a-lago, being rummaged through by who
2:20
knows who, but you know i read
2:22
something recently that i think is
2:25
even worse for donald trump. and that was --
2:27
and you spent a lot of time on it last
2:29
night when the new york times reported
2:31
that mr trump went through the boxes
2:35
himself in late 2021. now first of all,
2:39
that means he was concealing these
2:41
documents on the property at mar-a-lago
2:44
for a very long time, from late 2021
2:48
until the search warrant was executed by
2:50
the fbi in august of 2022. but even more
2:53
importantly, that has both legal
2:55
consequences and even more importantly
2:57
practical consequences, the legal
3:00
consequences is when you have a crime
3:02
that involves possession, like
3:04
mishandling of classified documents, or
3:06
national defense information, prosecutors
3:08
have to prove that the defendant handled
3:11
them, and mishandled them. and you know,
3:14
the law has two kinds of possession:
3:16
actual possession -- when you're grabbing
3:18
hold of something, and constructive
3:20
possession-- like when donald trump said
3:22
they put those boxes in a storage shed, he
3:25
may never have touched the boxes. but he
3:27
directed that they'd be placed in a
3:29
location over which he had control and
3:32
access. that's the very definition of
3:34
constructive possession. but you know, we
3:36
prosecutors are a conservative bunch -- not
3:39
necessarily politically -- but we don't
3:41
like to take risks. we like to bring
3:42
really strong cases. and lawrence, once i
3:45
saw the reporting that donald trump went
3:48
through the boxes himself, that will give
3:51
prosecutors a real
3:53
comfort level about bringing charges
3:56
that involve donald trump personally
3:59
mishandling classified or national
4:02
defense information.
4:04
and harry litman, the times, when it
4:06
reported that line that "mr trump went
4:09
through the boxes himself", that's the
4:12
source, is that it's -- i'm going to read
4:14
the line again as they reported it: "mr
4:16
trump went through the boxes himself in
4:17
late 2021 according to multiple people
4:21
briefed on his efforts before turning
4:23
them over." so harry, that indicates
4:25
there are multiple potential witnesses
4:28
to this
4:30
piece of evidence that donald trump
4:32
actually went through the boxes himself.
4:34
[lawrence o'donnell] assuming he did, and let's make one more
4:36
assumption: let's assume donald trump
4:38
didn't have any idea that there was any
4:41
information at all at his home
4:44
until december of 2021. that's a big leap
4:47
in donald trump's favor. just for the
4:48
moment let's pretend he didn't know, and
4:51
he discovers them in december of 2021,
4:53
and as the times says, he went through the
4:55
boxes himself,
4:57
what is his obligation upon going
4:59
through those boxes, and seeing that they
5:02
are government documents, presidential
5:05
documents that belong to the government?
5:07
that's set one. and set two, within that
5:11
there are plenty of documents, hundreds
5:13
it turns out, labeled
5:15
classified? what is donald
5:18
trump's legal obligation when he looks
5:20
at those boxes?
5:22
[harry litman] well, i'll tell you one thing it isn't:
5:24
that's to conceal them and lie about
5:28
them. this letter is so damning for
5:31
the reasons you said. but two other
5:34
things to really point out. the first is,
5:37
you know, he's brazen, but he has a
5:40
really small playbook. he's a one-trick
5:42
pony. he's doing the exact same argument
5:46
now about executive privilege. so his
5:49
ally has just published an entire
5:52
legal analysis. and it's not just from
5:54
the archivist, by the way. she checks with
5:56
the doj, the office of legal counsel. so
5:59
it you know, completely trashes his
6:02
legal claim. that's for starters. and now
6:05
second, in this ongoing, what are
6:08
things going to look like thursday, he
6:10
has led with his chin
6:12
in a way that now the department can
6:14
come in and say, oh well, besides this
6:17
letter, let me tell you what really
6:19
happened. and there will now be the
6:22
public accounting of the most important
6:25
aspect that would ever come out in the
6:28
redacted
6:30
version, which is all the back and forth.
6:33
remember, this letter's from may --
6:35
four more weeks -- and then more and more
6:38
and more. so he's given the doj an
6:40
opportunity to just slap him around, and
6:44
make the magistrate come thursday say,
6:47
you know, this has been sort of revealed.
6:49
we can do it in a more eliptical way. so
6:52
that's a long-winded way of answering
6:53
your question. but the main point is
6:56
obligation -- you know, whether or not he
6:58
needs to return it right away, and any of
7:00
us would. glenn would affirm. you see
7:02
documents like that, your head spins if
7:04
they're outside of a skiff.
7:07
you may not continue to conceal them and
7:09
lie about them, and if you do,
7:12
you're looking at 20-year statute that
7:16
7:19
they found in the search warrant here,
7:21
which is obstruction. so once you have
7:24
his knowledge, the obstruction follows
7:27
much more clearly.
7:31
[lawrence o'donnell] and mark, another point on obstruction. this letter from the
7:33
archives specifies to donald trump's
7:36
lawyers that these documents need to be
7:39
handed over to the fbi
7:42
for a criminal investigation. this letter
7:45
is dated may 10th. here's donald trump's
7:47
lawyer holding this in his hands on may
7:50
10th. if he doesn't know it before, he
7:52
knows it now: the fbi is doing a criminal
7:54
investigation of donald trump's handling
7:57
of these documents. that's may 10th. june
7:59
2nd, fbi agents and justice department
8:02
lawyers, come down to donald trump's
8:04
house in florida.
8:06
and the lawyers, the lawyer who got that
8:08
letter, hands over more documents,
8:10
but keeps some that are not handed over
8:15
at that time.
8:17
what does that do to this case?
8:20
[mark zaid] well i think it shows, for one, that there
8:22
is more than just donald trump who's
8:24
potentially facing legal liability. it
8:27
may be some of the lawyers. it's going to
8:29
depend on what they knew when they
8:31
filed this attestation that there was no
8:34
longer any classified documents at
8:36
mar-a-lago, which clearly wasn't true
8:38
since we know by the fbi
8:40
seizure. so it brings in a lot of play.
8:43
but the other thing that this letter
8:44
shows,
8:45
people have been wondering about this motion
8:47
that donald trump and his legal team
8:49
filed yesterday, which is
8:52
horrible. quite frankly, i would fire
8:54
anyone who wrote it if they were working
8:56
for my firm. uh that letter, people
8:59
were saying, "why did it take two weeks to
9:01
file the motion, you know, if you're
9:03
asking for a special master to look at
9:04
this information? and we can talk about
9:06
that if you want, because it's a separate
9:07
issue also. but if you waited that long,
9:10
why? but this letter even shows more,
9:13
because here it is they're put on notice,
9:15
back in may, that actually the former
9:17
president has the right to have
9:19
representatives review the documents
9:22
that are in its possession, to to do its
9:25
own classification review if they wanted,
9:28
so long as they had the proper security
9:29
clearance. i believe that is even john
9:32
solomon that is being referred to in
9:34
this letter. have we heard? and kash
9:37
patel, the other one who's been speaking
9:38
about this, you know, "i wave my magic hand and
9:41
the documents are declassified," have we
9:43
heard them say anything about getting
9:45
access? no. and i would like to know why.
9:48
that is, have they made an effort to get
9:50
access? they were even offered access to
9:53
the unclassified information so that
9:55
they could do an inventory. we haven't
9:57
heard anything about that either. and i
9:59
think we can agree that if there's
10:01
silence from the trump camp, it's because
10:03
they actually think it doesn't help them.
10:05
that means, i really want to know what it
10:07
was, and what the answers are.


************************************

Full text of National Archives letter to Trump on classified documents

May 10, 2022

Evan Corcoran
Silverman Thompson
400 East Pratt Street
Suite 900
Baltimore, MD 21202

By Email

Dear Mr. Corcoran:

I write in response to your letters of April 29, 2022, and May 1, 2022, requesting that the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) further delay the disclosure to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the records that were the subject of our April 12, 2022 notification to an authorized representative of former President Trump.

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. 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. On April 11, 2022, the White House Counsel’s Office—affirming a request from the Department of Justice supported by an FBI letterhead memorandum—formally transmitted a request that NARA provide the FBI access to the 15 boxes for its review within seven days, with the possibility that the FBI might request copies of specific documents following its review of the boxes.

Although the Presidential Records Act (PRA) generally restricts access to Presidential records in NARA’s custody for several years after the conclusion of a President’s tenure in office, the statute further provides that, “subject to any rights, defenses, or privileges which the United States or any agency or person may invoke,” such records “shall be made available . . . to an incumbent President if such records contain information that is needed for the conduct of current business of the incumbent President’s office and that is not otherwise available.” 44 U.S.C. § 2205(2)(B). Those conditions are satisfied here. As the Department of Justice’s National Security Division explained to you on April 29, 2022:

There are important national security interests in the FBI and others in the Intelligence Community getting access to these materials. According to NARA, among the materials in the boxes are over 100 documents with classification markings, comprising more than 700 pages. Some include the highest levels of classification, including Special Access Program (SAP) materials. Access to the materials is not only necessary for purposes of our ongoing criminal investigation, but the Executive Branch must also conduct an assessment of the potential damage resulting from the apparent manner in which these materials were stored and transported and take any necessary remedial steps. Accordingly, we are seeking immediate access to these materials so as to facilitate the necessary assessments that need to be conducted within the Executive Branch.

We advised you in writing on April 12 that, “in light of the urgency of this request,” we planned to “provid[e] access to the FBI next week,” i.e., the week of April 18. See Exec. Order No. 13,489, § 2(b), 74 Fed. Reg. 4,669 (Jan. 21, 2009) (providing a 30-day default before disclosure but authorizing the Archivist to specify “a shorter period of time” if “required under the circumstances”); accord 36 C.F.R. § 1270.44(g) (“The Archivist may adjust any time period or deadline under this subpart, as appropriate, to accommodate records requested under this section.”). In response to a request from another representative of the former President, the White House Counsel’s Office acquiesced in an extension of the production date to April 29, and so advised NARA. In accord with that agreement, we had not yet provided the FBI with access to the records when we received your letter on April 29, and we have continued to refrain from providing such access to date.

It has now been four weeks since we first informed you of our intent to provide the FBI access to the boxes so that it and others in the Intelligence Community can conduct their reviews. Notwithstanding the urgency conveyed by the Department of Justice and the reasonable extension afforded to the former President, your April 29 letter asks for additional time for you to review the materials in the boxes “in order to ascertain whether any specific document is subject to privilege,” and then to consult with the former President “so that he may personally make any decision to assert a claim of constitutionally based privilege.” Your April 29 letter further states that in the event we do not afford you further time to review the records before NARA discloses them in response to the request, we should consider your letter to be “a protective assertion of executive privilege made by counsel for the former President.”

The Counsel to the President has informed me that, in light of the particular circumstances presented here, President Biden defers to my determination, in consultation with the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, regarding whether or not I should uphold the former President’s purported “protective assertion of executive privilege.” See 36 C.F.R. § 1270.44(f)(3). Accordingly, I have consulted with the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel to inform my “determination as to whether to honor the former President’s claim of privilege or instead to disclose the Presidential records notwithstanding the claim of privilege.” Exec. Order No. 13,489, § 4(a).

The Assistant Attorney General has advised me that there is no precedent for an assertion of executive privilege by a former President against an incumbent President to prevent the latter from obtaining from NARA Presidential records belonging to the Federal Government where “such records contain information that is needed for the conduct of current business of the incumbent President’s office and that is not otherwise available.” 44 U.S.C. § 2205(2)(B).

To the contrary, the Supreme Court’s decision in Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S. 425 (1977), strongly suggests that a former President may not successfully assert executive privilege “against the very Executive Branch in whose name the privilege is invoked.” Id. at 447-48. In Nixon v. GSA, the Court rejected former President Nixon’s argument that a statute requiring that Presidential records from his term in office be maintained in the custody of, and screened by, NARA’s predecessor agency—a “very limited intrusion by personnel in the Executive Branch sensitive to executive concerns”—would “impermissibly interfere with candid communication of views by Presidential advisers.” Id. at 451; see also id. at 455 (rejecting the claim). The Court specifically noted that an “incumbent President should not be dependent on happenstance or the whim of a prior President when he seeks access to records of past decisions that define or channel current governmental obligations.” Id. at 452; see also id. at 441-46 (emphasizing, in the course of rejecting a separation-of-powers challenge to a provision of a federal statute governing the disposition of former President Nixon’s tape recordings, papers, and other historical materials “within the Executive Branch,” where the “employees of that branch [would] have access to the materials only ‘for lawful Government use,’” that “[t]he Executive Branch remains in full control of the Presidential materials, and the Act facially is designed to ensure that the materials can be released only when release is not barred by some applicable privilege inherent in that branch”; and concluding that “nothing contained in the Act renders it unduly disruptive of the Executive Branch”).

It is not necessary that I decide whether there might be any circumstances in which a former President could successfully assert a claim of executive privilege to prevent an Executive Branch agency from having access to Presidential records for the performance of valid executive functions. The question in this case is not a close one. The Executive Branch here is seeking access to records belonging to, and in the custody of, the Federal Government itself, not only in order to investigate whether those records were handled in an unlawful manner but also, as the National Security Division explained, to “conduct an assessment of the potential damage resulting from the apparent manner in which these materials were stored and transported and take any necessary remedial steps.” These reviews will be conducted by current government personnel who, like the archival officials in Nixon v. GSA, are “sensitive to executive concerns.” Id. at 451. And on the other side of the balance, there is no reason to believe such reviews could “adversely affect the ability of future Presidents to obtain the candid advice necessary for effective decisionmaking.” Id. at 450. To the contrary: Ensuring that classified information is appropriately protected, and taking any necessary remedial action if it was not, are steps essential to preserving the ability of future Presidents to “receive the full and frank submissions of facts and opinions upon which effective discharge of [their] duties depends.” Id. at 449.

Because an assertion of executive privilege against the incumbent President under these circumstances would not be viable, it follows that there is no basis for the former President to make a “protective assertion of executive privilege,” which the Assistant Attorney General informs me has never been made outside the context of a congressional demand for information from the Executive Branch. Even assuming for the sake of argument that a former President may under some circumstances make such a “protective assertion of executive privilege” to preclude the Archivist from complying with a disclosure otherwise prescribed by 44 U.S.C. § 2205(2), there is no predicate for such a “protective” assertion here, where there is no realistic basis that the requested delay would result in a viable assertion of executive privilege against the incumbent President that would prevent disclosure of records for the purposes of the reviews described above. Accordingly, the only end that would be served by upholding the “protective” assertion here would be to delay those very important reviews.

I have therefore decided not to honor the former President’s “protective” claim of privilege. See Exec. Order No. 13,489, § 4(a); see also 36 C.F.R. 1270.44(f)(3) (providing that unless the incumbent President “uphold[s]” the claim asserted by the former President, “the Archivist discloses the Presidential record”). For the same reasons, I have concluded that there is no reason to grant your request for a further delay before the FBI and others in the Intelligence Community begin their reviews. Accordingly, NARA will provide the FBI access to the records in question, as requested by the incumbent President, beginning as early as Thursday, May 12, 2022.

Please note that, in accordance with the PRA, 44 U.S.C. § 2205(3), the former President’s designated representatives can review the records, subject to obtaining the appropriate level of security clearance. Please contact my General Counsel, Gary M. Stern, if you would like to discuss the details of such a review, such as you proposed in your letter of May 5, 2022, particularly with respect to any unclassified materials.

Sincerely,

DEBRA STEIDEL WALL

Acting Archivist of the United States

[admin]

Paperless Order
by Judge Aileen M. Cannon
Trump v. United States (9:22-cv-81294)
Aug 23, 2022

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap ... .1.0_6.pdf
Trump v. United States (9:22-cv-81294)
District Court, S.D. Florida
Last Updated: Aug. 24, 2022, 10:05 p.m. EDT
Assigned To: Aileen M. Cannon
Date Filed: Aug. 22, 2022
Date of Last Known Filing: Aug. 24, 2022
Cause: Motion for Judicial Review
Nature of Suit: 890 Other Statutory Actions
Jury Demand: None
Jurisdiction Type: U.S. Government Defendant

1
Aug 22, 2022
COMPLAINT/Motion for Judicial Oversight and Additional Relief against United States of America. Filing fees $ 402.00, filed by Donald J. Trump. (Attachments: # 1 Civil Cover Sheet, # 2 Text of Proposed Order)(jas) (Entered: 08/22/2022)
Main Doc­ument
Complaint
Attach­ment 1
Civil Cover Sheet
Attach­ment 2
Text of Proposed Order

2
Aug 22, 2022
Clerks Notice of Judge Assignment to Judge Aileen M. Cannon. Pursuant to 28 USC 636(c), the parties are hereby notified that the U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce E. Reinhart is available to handle any or all proceedings in this case. If agreed, parties should complete and file the Consent form found on our website. It is not necessary to file a document indicating lack of consent. Pro se (NON-PRISONER) litigants may receive Notices of Electronic Filings (NEFS) via email after filing a Consent by Pro Se Litigant (NON-PRISONER) to Receive Notices of Electronic Filing. The consent form is available under the forms section of our website. (jas) (Entered: 08/22/2022)
Main Doc
Clerk's Notice of Judge Assignment

3
Aug 22, 2022
NOTICE OF CONVENTIONAL FILING of 1 COMPLAINT/Motion for Judicial Oversight and Additional Relief by Donald J. Trump. (jas) (Entered: 08/22/2022)
Main Doc
Notice of Conventional Filing

4
Aug 22, 2022
Clerk's Notice of Filing Deficiency Re: 1 Complaint filed by Donald J. Trump. Document(s) were filed conventionally that should have been filed electronically (CM/ECF Administrative Procedures). (jas) (Entered: 08/22/2022)
Main Doc
Clerk's Notice of Filing Deficiency

5
Aug 22, 2022
MOTION to Appear Pro Hac Vice, Consent to Designation, and Request to Electronically Receive Notices of Electronic Filing for M. Evan Corcoran. Filing Fee $200.00 Receipt # 15943 by Donald J. Trump. Responses due by 9/6/2022. (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order)(jas) (Entered: 08/22/2022)
Main Doc
Motion to Appear Pro Hac Vice
Att 1
Text of Proposed Order

6
Aug 22, 2022
MOTION to Appear Pro Hac Vice, Consent to Designation, and Request to Electronically Receive Notices of Electronic Filing for James M. Trusty. Filing Fee $200.00 Receipt #15943 by Donald J. Trump. Responses due by 9/6/2022. (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order) (jas) (Entered: 08/22/2022)
Main Doc
Motion to Appear Pro Hac Vice
Att 1
Text of Proposed Order

7
Aug 22, 2022
Clerks Receipt for Filing Fee, Two Pro Hac Vice Motions DE# 5, 6 received on 8/22/2022 in the amount of $802.00, receipt number 15943. (jas) (Entered: 08/22/2022)
Main Doc
Clerk's Receipt

9
Aug 22, 2022
Clerk's Notice of Filing Deficiency Re: 5 MOTION to Appear Pro Hac Vice, Consent to Designation, and Request to Electronically Receive Notices of Electronic Filing for M. Evan Corcoran. Filing Fee $200.00 Receipt #15943 filed by Donald J. Trump, 6 MOTION to Appear Pro Hac Vice, Consent to Designation, and Request to Electronically Receive Notices of Electronic Filing for James M. Trusty. Filing Fee $200.00 Receipt #15943 filed by Donald J. Trump. Document(s) were filed conventionally that should have been filed electronically (CM/ECF Administrative Procedures). (jas) (Entered: 08/23/2022)
Main Doc
Clerk's Notice of Filing Deficiency
Aug 22, 2022
Clerk's Notice of Judge Assignment and Optional Consent

8
Aug 23, 2022
PAPERLESS ORDER denying without prejudice 5 6 Motions to Appear Pro Hac Vice, Consents to Designation, and Requests to Electronically Receive Notices of Electronic Filing for M. Evan Corcoran and James M. Trusty. Local counsel is instructed to refile the motions in strict accordance with Local Rule 4(b) of the Rules Governing the Admission, Practice, Peer Review, and Discipline of Attorneys. A sample motion can be found on the Court's website at https://www.flsd.uscourts.gov/pro-hac-vice-appearance. Signed by Judge Aileen M. Cannon on 8/23/2022. (dsy) (Entered: 08/23/2022)
Main Doc
Order on Motion to Appear Pro Hac Vice

10
Aug 23, 2022
PAPERLESS ORDER: The Court is in receipt of 1 Plaintiff's Motion for Judicial Oversight and Additional Relief. To facilitate appropriate resolution, on or before August 26, 2022, Plaintiff shall file a supplement to the Motion further elaborating on the following: (1) the asserted basis for the exercise of this Court's jurisdiction, whether legal, equitable/anomalous, or both; (2) the framework applicable to the exercise of such jurisdiction; (3) the precise relief sought, including any request for injunctive relief pending resolution of the Motion; (4) the effect, if any, of the proceeding before Magistrate Judge Bruce E. Reinhart; and (5) the status of Plaintiff's efforts to perfect service on Defendant. Signed by Judge Aileen M. Cannon on 8/23/2022. (AMC) (Entered: 08/23/2022)
Main Doc
Order

11
Aug 23, 2022
MOTION to Appear Pro Hac Vice, Consent to Designation, and Request to Electronically Receive Notices of Electronic Filing for James M. Trusty. Filing Fee $200.00 Receipt #15943 by Donald J. Trump. Responses due by 9/6/2022 (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order. (jas) (Entered: 08/24/2022)
Main Doc
Motion to Appear Pro Hac Vice
Att 1
Text of Proposed Order

12
Aug 23, 2022
NOTICE OF CONVENTIONAL FILING of 11 MOTION to Appear Pro Hac Vice, Consent to Designation, and Request to Electronically Receive Notices of Electronic Filing for James M. Trusty. Filing Fee $200.00 Receipt #15943 by Donald J. Trump. (jas) (Entered: 08/24/2022)
Main Doc
Notice of Conventional Filing

13
Aug 23, 2022
MOTION to Appear Pro Hac Vice, Consent to Designation, and Request to Electronically Receive Notices of Electronic Filing for M. Evan Corcoran. Filing Fee $200.00 Receipt #15943 by Donald J. Trump. Responses due by 9/6/2022 (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order)(jas) (Entered: 08/24/2022)
Main Doc
Motion to Appear Pro Hac Vice
Att 1
Text of Proposed Order

14
Aug 23, 2022
NOTICE OF CONVENTIONAL FILING of 13 MOTION to Appear Pro Hac Vice, Consent to Designation, and Request to Electronically Receive Notices of Electronic Filing for M. Evan Corcoran. Filing Fee $200.00 Receipt #15943 by Donald J. Trump. (jas) (Entered: 08/24/2022)
Main Doc
Notice of Conventional Filing

15
Aug 23, 2022
Clerk's Notice of Filing Deficiency Re: 13 MOTION to Appear Pro Hac Vice, Consent to Designation, and Request to Electronically Receive Notices of Electronic Filing for M. Evan Corcoran. Filing Fee $200.00 Receipt #15943 filed by Donald J. Trump, 11 MOTION to Appear Pro Hac Vice, Consent to Designation, and Request to Electronically Receive Notices of Electronic Filing for James M. Trusty. Filing Fee $200.00 Receipt #15943 filed by Donald J. Trump. Document(s) were filed conventionally that should have been filed electronically (CM/ECF Administrative Procedures). (jas) (Entered: 08/24/2022)
Main Doc
Clerk's Notice of Filing Deficiency
Aug 23, 2022
Order on Motion to Appear Pro Hac Vice AND Order on Motion to Appear Pro Hac Vice
Aug 23, 2022
- Order (PAPERLESS or pdf attached)

16
Aug 24, 2022
PAPERLESS ORDER granting 11 13 the Motions to Appear Pro Hac Vice, Consents to Designation, and Requests to Electronically Receive Notices of Electronic Filing for Attorneys James M. Trusty and M. Evan Corcoran. The Court reserves the power to withdraw permission for special appearance at any time. Failure to abide by any court order or failure to appear at any scheduled matter may result in immediate revocation of counsels' pro hac vice status. Local counsel must be ready to adequately represent the party at any time. Signed by Judge Aileen M. Cannon on 8/24/2022. (dsy) (Entered: 08/24/2022)
Main Doc
Order on Motion to Appear Pro Hac Vice
Aug 24, 2022
Order on Motion to Appear Pro Hac Vice AND Order on Motion to Appear Pro Hac Vice

***************************

10
Aug 23, 2022
PAPERLESS ORDER: The Court is in receipt of 1 Plaintiff's Motion for Judicial Oversight and Additional Relief. To facilitate appropriate resolution, on or before August 26, 2022, Plaintiff shall file a supplement to the Motion further elaborating on the following: (1) the asserted basis for the exercise of this Court's jurisdiction, whether legal, equitable/anomalous, or both; (2) the framework applicable to the exercise of such jurisdiction; (3) the precise relief sought, including any request for injunctive relief pending resolution of the Motion; (4) the effect, if any, of the proceeding before Magistrate Judge Bruce E. Reinhart; and (5) the status of Plaintiff's efforts to perfect service on Defendant. Signed by Judge Aileen M. Cannon on 8/23/2022. (AMC) (Entered: 08/23/2022)

Rule 2. One Form of Action
Primary tabs
There is one form of action—the civil action
https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_2

Rule 3. Commencing an Action
Primary tabs
A civil action is commenced by filing a complaint with the court.

Notes
(As amended Apr. 30, 2007, eff. Dec. 1, 2007.)

Notes of Advisory Committee on Rules—1937

1. Rule 5(e) defines what constitutes filing with the court.

2. This rule governs the commencement of all actions, including those brought by or against the United States or an officer or agency thereof, regardless of whether service is to be made personally pursuant to Rule 4(d), or otherwise pursuant to Rule 4(e).

3. With this rule compare [former] Equity Rule 12 (Issue of Subpoena—Time for Answer) and the following statutes (and other similar statutes) which provide a similar method for commencing an action:

U.S.C., Title 28:

§45 [former] (District courts; practice and procedure in certain cases under interstate commerce laws).

§762 [see 1402] (Petition in suit against United States).

§766 [see 2409] (Partition suits where United States is tenant in common or joint tenant).

4. This rule provides that the first step in an action is the filing of the complaint. Under Rule 4(a) this is to be followed forthwith by issuance of a summons and its delivery to an officer for service.

Rule 4. Summons
Primary tabs
(a) Contents; Amendments.

(1) Contents. A summons must:

(A) name the court and the parties;

(B) be directed to the defendant;

(C) state the name and address of the plaintiff's attorney or—if unrepresented—of the plaintiff;

(D) state the time within which the defendant must appear and defend;

(E) notify the defendant that a failure to appear and defend will result in a default judgment against the defendant for the relief demanded in the complaint;

(F) be signed by the clerk; and

(G) bear the court's seal.

(2) Amendments. The court may permit a summons to be amended.

(b) Issuance. On or after filing the complaint, the plaintiff may present a summons to the clerk for signature and seal. If the summons is properly completed, the clerk must sign, seal, and issue it to the plaintiff for service on the defendant. A summons—or a copy of a summons that is addressed to multiple defendants—must be issued for each defendant to be served.

(c) Service.

(1) In General. A summons must be served with a copy of the complaint. The plaintiff is responsible for having the summons and complaint served within the time allowed by Rule 4(m) and must furnish the necessary copies to the person who makes service.

(2) By Whom. Any person who is at least 18 years old and not a party may serve a summons and complaint.

(3) By a Marshal or Someone Specially Appointed. At the plaintiff's request, the court may order that service be made by a United States marshal or deputy marshal or by a person specially appointed by the court. The court must so order if the plaintiff is authorized to proceed in forma pauperis under 28 U.S.C. §1915 or as a seaman under 28 U.S.C. §1916.

[admin]

Memo Details Barr’s Justifications for Clearing Trump of Obstruction: A document released by court order showed how in 2019, Justice Department lawyers argued that President Donald J. Trump had not illegally impeded the Russia investigation.
by Mark Mazzetti, Michael S. Schmidt and Charlie Savage
New York Times
Aug. 24, 2022
Updated 9:13 p.m. ET

Memorandum for the Attorney General, From Steven A. Engel, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal counsel and Edward C. O'Callaghan, Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Re: Review of the Special Counsel's Report, Dated March 24, 2019

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration released a Trump-era memorandum on Wednesday that provided the most detailed look yet at the Justice Department’s legal reasoning for proclaiming that President Donald J. Trump could not be charged with obstruction of justice over his efforts to impede the Russia investigation.

The March 2019 memo, delivered to the attorney general at the time, William P. Barr, concluded that none of Mr. Trump’s actions chronicled in the report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III — from firing his F.B.I. director to pressuring the White House counsel to recant his testimony to prosecutors — could be shown beyond a reasonable doubt to be criminal acts.

Many of these actions, two senior Justice Department officials wrote, should be interpreted by an inference that Mr. Trump “reasonably believed” the investigations were impeding his government agenda, meaning he lacked the corrupt intent necessary to prosecute him for obstruction.

The Justice Department under both the Trump and the Biden administrations fought unsuccessfully in court to avoid releasing the full text of the memo, which was the subject of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

After losing in court on Friday, the Justice Department had the option to appeal the case. But the department’s senior leadership decided to release the document, according to a senior official in federal law enforcement. The leadership never opposed airing its contents, but had contested its release on narrower legal grounds, the person added.

The memo’s release in 2022 — long after the Mueller investigation and its aftermath — is largely significant for historical reasons. While Mr. Barr immediately pronounced Mr. Trump cleared of any obstruction of justice offense, he never discussed in detail his rationale for rejecting many of the episodes in the Mueller report.

The memo to Mr. Barr was signed by Steven A. Engel, the head of the Office of Legal Counsel, and Ed O’Callaghan, the principal associate deputy attorney general who had been the main liaison between the Justice Department and the special counsel’s office.

Outside specialists in white-collar law greeted the disclosure of the memo with some skepticism, describing its tone as essentially that of a defense lawyer in a trial rather than an even-handed weighing of the law and evidence.

“Not impressed,” said Samuel Buell, a Duke University law professor and former federal prosecutor. “It reads more like a defense lawyer’s brief than a full and balanced analysis citing the legal authorities.”

Among the most significant episodes of potential obstruction described in the Mueller report was Mr. Trump’s dangling of a potential pardon before witnesses like Paul Manafort, his former campaign chairman, while encouraging him not to cooperate with investigators. Mr. Manafort was convicted of financial crimes, and Mr. Trump pardoned him late in his administration.

The Trump Investigations
Card 1 of 6
Numerous inquiries. Since former President Donald J. Trump left office, he has been facing several civil and criminal investigations into his business dealings and political activities. Here is a look at some notable cases:

Classified documents inquiry. The F.B.I. searched Mr. Trump’s Florida home as part of the Justice Department’s investigation into his handling of classified materials. The inquiry is focused on documents that Mr. Trump had brought with him to Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence, when he left the White House.

Jan. 6 investigations. In a series of public hearings, the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack laid out a comprehensive narrative of Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. This evidence could allow federal prosecutors, who are conducting a parallel criminal investigation, to indict Mr. Trump.

Georgia election interference case. Fani T. Willis, the Atlanta-area district attorney, has been leading a wide-ranging criminal investigation into the efforts of Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia. This case could pose the most immediate legal peril for the former president and his associates.

New York State civil inquiry. Letitia James, the New York attorney general, has been conducting a civil investigation into Mr. Trump and his family business. The case is focused on whether Mr. Trump’s statements about the value of his assets were part of a pattern of fraud or were simply Trumpian showmanship.

Manhattan criminal case. Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, has been investigating whether Mr. Trump or his family business intentionally submitted false property values to potential lenders. But the inquiry faded from view after signs emerged suggesting that Mr. Trump was unlikely to be indicted.

The memo to Mr. Barr never mentioned the word “pardon,” instead characterizing that and similar episodes as Mr. Trump merely praising or condemning witnesses based on whether they cooperated with investigators. The memo argues that this could be interpreted as Mr. Trump merely not wanting the witnesses to lie and make up false claims against him.

To back up its assessments, the memo repeatedly stresses that Mr. Mueller’s investigation did not find sufficient evidence to charge any Trump campaign associate in a conspiracy with Russia.

“Once again, this conclusion is buttressed by the absence of any clear evidence that these witnesses had information that would prove the president had committed a crime,” Mr. Engel and Mr. O’Callaghan wrote.

Ryan Goodman, a New York University law professor, called the memo a “get out of jail free” card, adding: “It’s hard to stomach a memo that amounts to saying someone is not guilty of obstruction for deliberately trying to induce witnesses not to cooperate with law enforcement in a major criminal investigation.”

The Biden administration released an unredacted memorandum from March 2019 that described the Justice Department’s legal reasoning for declining to charge President Donald J. Trump in the Russia investigation.

Mr. Barr has denounced the Russia investigation, saying it was cooked up by Mr. Trump’s opponents to upend his presidency and that Mr. Trump was well within his rights to push back against the sprawling inquiry and the negative media attention that came with it.

In his report, Mr. Mueller detailed numerous cases of possible obstruction, but chose not to render a judgment. Under Justice Department policy, he wrote, the department cannot indict a sitting president and therefore it would be unfair to accuse Mr. Trump of breaking the law while he was in office.

The memo shows that senior Justice Department officials seemed to be prepared to knock down arguments that Mr. Trump had obstructed justice. It is dated March 24, only two days after the special counsel’s office delivered a report of more than 400 pages to the attorney general.

“If the president were to perjure himself, tamper with witness testimony or corruptly destroy evidence, then such actions would violate well-established law,” the memo stated. “But we do not believe that any of the actions described in the report would meet such a standard.”

The Mueller report itself raised doubts about whether some of the highest-profile acts that could be considered potential obstruction of justice — like the firing of the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey Jr. — met all the required elements of that crime.

But the report’s analysis put greater emphasis on Mr. Trump’s attempts to have Mr. Mueller fired or the investigation’s scope gutted — which were thwarted when aides refused to carry out his instructions — and then his attempt to get his White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, to deny that Mr. Trump had pushed him to oust the special prosecutor.

The memo to Mr. Barr dismissed both aspects. While it acknowledged that an unsuccessful attempt to commit a crime is itself a criminal act, it stressed that Mr. Trump had backed down when his aides refused to carry out his orders. That could make it harder, it said, for prosecutors to prove he had the necessary criminal intent to charge him.

Legal specialists have pointed to Mr. Trump’s attempt to force Mr. McGahn to write a memo denying that Mr. Trump had pushed him to have Mr. Mueller fired as arguably an attempt to falsify written evidence that would undermine Mr. McGahn’s ability to testify as a witness in any later trial. Moreover, while Mr. Trump also wanted Mr. McGahn to issue a public statement, the written denial the president was seeking was not intended for release.

The memo does not address those arguments. Rather, it characterizes Mr. McGahn’s recollection of the president’s directions as ambiguous, apparently because Mr. Trump did not use the word “fire.” (According to Mr. McGahn’s sworn testimony to Congress, Mr. Trump called him at home and said, “Mueller has to go” and “call me back when you do it.”)

Glenn Thrush contributed reporting.

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US. Department of Justice

Washington D.C. 20530

March 24, 2019

MEMORANDUM FOR THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

THROUGH: THE DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL

FROM: Steven A. Engel, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel
Edward C. O'Callaghan, Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General

SUBJECT: Review of the Special Counsel's Report

At your request, we have evaluated Volume II of the Special Counsel's Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election to determine whether the facts recited therein would support initiating or declining the prosecution of the President for obstruction of justice under the Principles of Federal Prosecution, without regard to any constitutional barrier to such a prosecution under Article I of the U.S. Constitution. Over the course of the Special Counsel's investigation, we have previously discussed these issues within the Department among ourselves, with the Deputy Attorney General, and with you since your appointment, as well as with the Special Counsel and his staff. Our conclusions are the product of those discussions, as well as our review of the Report.

For the reasons stated below, we conclude that the evidence described in Volume II of the Report is not, in our judgment, sufficient to support a conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt that the President violated the obstruction-of-justice statutes.1 [Given the length and detail of the Special Counsel's Report, we do not recount the relevant facts here. Our discussion and analysis assumes familiarity with the Report as well as much of the background surrounding he Special Counsel's investigation.] In addition, we believe that certain of the conduct examined by the Special Counsel could not, as a matter of law, support an obstruction charge under the circumstances. Accordingly, were there no constitutional barrier, we would recommend, under the Principles of Federal Prosecution, that you decline to commence such a prosecution.

I. The Department Should Reach a Conclusion on Whether Prosecution Is Warranted Based on the Findings in Volume I of the Special Counsel Report

The Special Counsel has investigated certain facts relating to the President's response to the FBI's Russia investigation and to the subsequent Special Counsel investigation. In so doing, the Special Counsel reached no conclusion as to whether the President had violated any criminal law or whether, if so, such conduct warranted prosecution. The Special Counsel considered evaluating such conduct under the Justice Manual standards governing prosecutions and declinations, but determined not to apply that approach for several reasons. The Special Counsel recognized that the Office of Legal Counsel (“OLC”) had determined that “a sitting President is constitutionally immune from indictment and criminal prosecution.” A Sitting President's Amenability to Indictment and Criminal Prosecution, 24 Op O.L.C. 222, 260 (2000). Although the OLC opinion permitted the investigation of a siting President, the Special Counsel concluded that it would be unfair to reach any charging decision, because the President would not then be afforded any opportunity to clear his name before an impartial adjudicator. Accordingly, the Report identifies evidence on both sides of the obstruction question and leaves unresolved what it viewed as “difficult issues” concerning whether the President's actions and intent could be viewed as obstruction of justice.

Although the Special Counsel has declined to reach a conclusion, we think that the Department should reach a judgment on this matter. Under traditional principles of prosecution, the Department either brings charges or it does not. Because the Department brings charges against an individual only where the admissible evidence would support the proof of such charges beyond a reasonable doubt, any uncertainty concerning the facts or the law underlying a proposed prosecution ultimately must be resolved in favor of that individual. That principle does not change simply because the subject of the investigation is the President. Although the Special Counsel recognized the unfairness of levying an accusation against the President without bringing criminal charges, the Report's failure to take a position on the matters described therein might be read to imply such an accusation if the confidential report were released to the public. Therefore, we recommend that you examine the Report to determine whether prosecution would be appropriate given the evidence recounted in the Special Counsel's Report, the underlying law, and traditional principles of federal prosecution.

II. Prosecution Would Not Be Warranted Based on the Findings in Volume II of the Special Counsel's Report

A fair evaluation of the Special Counsel's findings and legal theories weighs in favor of declining prosecution. While cataloguing actions that the President took, many of which took place in public view, the Report identifies no actions that, in our judgment, constituted obstructive acts, done with a nexus to a pending proceeding, with the corrupt intent necessary to warrant prosecution under the obstruction-of-justice statutes. Based on the evidence described and the legal theories articulated in Volume II of the Special Counsel's Report regarding “whether the President had obstructed justice in connection with Russia-related investigations,” we believe that prosecution would not be warranted in these circumstances, wholly apart from constitutional considerations.

A. Principles of Federal Prosecution

The applicable Principles of Federal Prosecution articulated in the Justice Manual state that “a determination to prosecute represents a policy judgment that the fundamental interests of society require the application of federal criminal law to a particular set of circumstances — recognizing both that serious violations of federal law must be prosecuted, and that prosecution entails profound consequences for the accused, crime victims, and their families, whether or not a conviction ultimately results.” Justice Manual § 9-27.001. This statement of principles advances "two important purposes: ensuring the fair and effective exercise of prosecutorial discretion and responsibility by attorneys for the government, and promoting confidence on the part of the public and individual defendants that important prosecutorial decisions will be made rationally and objectively on the merits of each case.” Id.

These principles must be applied by the Department to all prosecution decisions, no matter the status of the subjects or targets of the investigation. The Justice Manual instructs that, as a threshold matter, a prosecutor should only “commence or recommend federal prosecution if he/she believes that the person's conduct constitutes a federal offense, and that the admissible evidence will probably be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction.” Justice Manual § 9-27.20 (emphasis added). The Comment to this section further clarifies, “both as a matter of fundamental fairness and in the interest of the efficient administration of Justice, no prosecution should be initiated against any person unless the attorney for the government believes that the admissible evidence is sufficient to obtain and sustain a guilty verdict by an unbiased trier of fact.” id. If these threshold factors are satisfied, the prosecutor then should weigh other relevant considerations in deciding whether to commence or recommend a prosecution. See id. §§ 9-27.220 to 9-27.250.

Applying these principles, if the person's conduct under scrutiny is not a federal offense or the admissible evidence is not sufficient to obtain and sustain a guilty verdict, then the prosecution should be declined.

B. There Is No Precedent for an Obstruction Case on Similar Facts

To our knowledge, the Special Counsel's investigation of potential obstruction is not similar to any reported case that the Department has previously charged under the obstruction-of-justice statutes. The Report identifies no obstruction case that the Department has pursued under remotely similar circumstances, and we have not identified any either. Of course, any investigation concerning the President would be exceptional, but the President is hardly the only public official who could be subject to investigation. The Department has investigated the potential misuse of official authority, including the obstruction of official proceedings, in a host of different circumstances.

The Special Counsel's obstruction theory would not only be novel, but, based on his own analysis, it would also be unusual because Volume I of the Special Counsel's Report is conclusive: that the evidence developed “was not sufficient to charge that any member of the Trump Campaign [including the President] conspired or coordinated with representatives of the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election.” Given that conclusion, the evidence does not establish a crime or criminal conspiracy involving the President toward which any obstruction or attempted obstruction by the President was directed. It would be rare for federal prosecutors to bring an obstruction prosecution that did not itself arise out of a proceeding related to a separate crime. Moreover, much of the President's potentially obstructive conduct amounted to attempts to modify the process under which the Special Counsel investigation progressed, rather than efforts to impair or intentionally alter evidence (documentary or testimonial) that would negatively impact the Special Counsel's ability to obtain and develop evidence.

The Special Counsel's Report cites over a dozen federal obstruction decisions in the Report, yet in nearly every one, the charged conduct involved (i) inherently wrongful acts to destroy evidence, to create false evidence, or to tamper with witnesses or jurors, and (ii) an effort to prevent the investigation or punishment of a separate, underlying crime. We have identified only two cases that lack one of those elements. The first is Arthur Anderson LLP v. United States, 544 U.S. 696, 707-08 (2005), which concerned the destruction of evidence in advance of an expected SEC investigation. Although there was no evidence in that case of an underlying crime, the exception essentially proves the rule, because the Supreme Court vacated the conviction precisely because the prosecution could have covered innocuous conduct. When it comes to actions otherwise lawful in themselves, the Court emphasized the need to “exercise restraint in assessing the reach of a federal criminal statute,” because of the need to provide “fair warning.” Id. at 696, 703-04. The Court emphasized that such restraint is particularly appropriate where the “act underlying the conviction .... is by itself innocuous,” is not “inherently malign” and could be performed for appropriate, non-criminal reasons. Id. In construing the obstruction statute, the Supreme Court observed that “corrupt” and “corruptly” “are normally associated with wrongful, immoral, depraved, or evil” conduct, and the Court vacated the conviction because the jury instruction did not meet that demanding standard. Id. at 705.

The Report also cites United States v. Cueto, 151 F.34 620, 631 (7th Cir. 1998), which was a case that clearly involved an effort to protect an underlying crime—namely an illegal gambling operation—but that also involved actions that would have been lawful if undertaken for a non-corrupt purpose. The Seventh Circuit there affirmed the conviction of one of the owners of the gambling operation, because he had repeatedly abused state court processes in order to take discovery from grand jury witnesses in an effort to impede the federal investigation. Although the obstruction charge involved otherwise lawful conduct, we cannot describe it as in any way resembling the facts described in the Special Counsel's Report.2 [The Special Counsel also cites United States v. Cintolo, 818 F.24 980,992 (1st Cir. 1987), which recognized that “any act by any party—whether lawful or unlawful on its face -- may abridge § 1503,” but that case involved both an inherently wrongful act (tampering with a grand jury witness) and separate, underlying crimes (an illegal gambling and loan-sharking operation).]

In our prior discussions, the Special Counsel has acknowledged that “we have not uncovered reported cases that involve precisely analogous conduct.” See Special Counsel's Office Memorandum to the 600.4 File, Preliminary Assessment of Obstruction Evidence, at 12 (July 3, 2018). Indeed, in seeking to identify cases in which the misuse of otherwise lawful authority established an obstruction case, the memorandum cited three charging documents, two of which arose from state court and thus did not involve federal criminal violations. See id. All three cases involved an effort to use official authority to prevent the prosecution or punishment of a distinct crime. The one federal case did not involve just the abuse of official authority, but rather witness tampering and manufacturing false evidence, concerns that go to the heart of the obstruction statutes. Accordingly, there simply does not appear to be any clear legal precedent similar to the kinds of conduct evaluated here.

C. The Report Does Not Identify Any Actions Rising To Obstruction of Justice

We have carefully reviewed Volume II of the Report and concluded that it does not identify sufficient evidence to prove any criminal offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Although Volume I makes no conclusions about the President's conduct, it adopts an expansive reading of 28 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2) as prohibiting any act, including an otherwise lawful act, that impedes an official proceeding, so long as the act is done with a corrupt intent. According to the Special Counsel, there is no requirement that the act be inherently malign or impair the availability of witnesses or evidence. At the same time, the Report advances several definitions of “corruptly,” including one that would establish intent by proof of an “improper purpose.” The Report thus suggests that the President's exercise of executive discretion for any improper reason, including the prevention of personal embarrassment, could constitute obstruction of justice if it impeded a pending investigation. As we have discussed with you, we do not subscribe to such a reading of the obstruction-of-justice statutes. No reported case comes close to upholding a conviction of such breadth, and a line of Supreme Court precedent, including Arthur Anderson, weighs heavily in favor of objectivity and certainty in the federal criminal law. In order to reach the conclusions in this memorandum, however, we do not believe it necessary to address this disagreement further, because in our view, Volume II of the Report does not establish offenses that would warrant prosecution, even under such a broad legal framework.

The Report evaluates ten episodes involving the President's conduct. For many of those episodes, the Special Counsel advises that there is significant evidence to indicate that the President's actions would not meet one or more of the elements of the obstruction-of-justice statutes. For others, the Special Counsel's evaluation of the evidence is more equivocal, and he identifies evidence on both sides of the question. Having reviewed the Report in light of the governing legal principles, and the Principles of Federal Prosecution, we conclude that none of these instances would warrant a prosecution for obstruction of justice, without regard to the constitutional constraint on bringing such an action against a sitting President. Having discussed each of these episodes with you on multiple occasions, this memorandum summarizes the reasons for our conclusions, without analyzing each and every item described in the Report.

1. The President's Response to the FBI's Russia Investigation

The Special Counsel's Report divides the President's alleged obstructive conduct into two broad categories, one before he fired the former FBI Director, James Comey, when the President had been told that he was not personally under investigation; and the other after that firing, when the President learned that he was then under scrutiny for potential obstruction. The former category includes the President's private meetings with Comey concerning his “loyalty” and the investigation of Michael Flynn; the President's efforts to convince his senior national security officials to confirm publicly that he was not under investigation; and the events surrounding Comey’s termination.

We do not believe that any of these events establishes obstruction of justice. As the Report indicates, during this period, the President was repeatedly informed by Comey that he was not personally under investigation. There is no clear evidence that the President knew of Flynn's conversation with Kislyak or that he had misrepresented it to the Vice President, prior to McGahn informing him of those facts. At the same time, the President repeatedly demonstrated his belief that the Russia investigation had cast a cloud on his nascent Administration and that it was being exploited, if not outright conducted, by his political opponents to frustrate his efforts to implement his agenda. As the Report indicates, many of the President's actions in these matters can readily be explained by his desire to have the FBI Director or others in the Administration inform the public that he was not under investigation. Indeed, the Report identifies substantial evidence that the FBI Director's refusal to make such a public statement was the driving force in the President terminating him.

We also do not believe that the President’ actions regarding Michael Flynn present any case of obstruction of justice. The Special Counsel did not uncover any evidence that the President had any personal culpability in the Flynn investigation or that his actions were motivated by improper considerations. The President's expression of “hope” that Comey would “let this go” did not clearly direct a particular action in the Flynn investigation, and Comey did not react at the time as though he had received a direct order from the President. By the same token, as the Special Counsel acknowledges, the President's decision to remove the FBI Director did not constitute obstruction either. In our view, none of these actions constitutes a case of obstruction of justice, either as a matter of law or fact.

2. The Presidents Actions Concerning the Management of the Special Counsel's Investigation

The Report also discusses a second category of actions taken by the President after the appointment of the Special Counsel, most notably after he learned that the Special Counsel had opened an investigation into potential obstruction of justice. Most of the conduct identified consists of facially lawful actions that are part of the President's constitutional responsibility to supervise the Executive Branch. The Special Counsel considers, for example, whether the President obstructed justice by asking the White House Counsel to direct the firing of the Special Counsel; by asking Corey Lewandowski to contact the Attorney General and seek his assistance in narrowing the Special Counsel's investigation; and by asking the Attorney General to reverse his recusal and to supervise the Special Counsel's investigation.

We do not believe that the principles of federal prosecution support charges based upon any of those actions. As noted, the evidence does not establish that the President took any of these actions because he sought to prevent the investigation of an underlying criminal offense, separate and apart from the obstruction case, and the Department rarely brings obstruction cases absent a separate criminal offense. Such a prosecution is doubly inappropriate where, as here, the conduct under investigation is lawful on its face, and the evidence of any corrupt motive is, at the very least, questionable. Federal criminal statutes should be construed to avoid criminalizing generally innocent conduct. See, e.g., Arthur Anderson, 544 U.S. at 703-04; Ratzlaf v. United States, 510 USS. 135, 144 (1994). The standard for demonstrating that a public official acted with corrupt intent is demanding. And there is considerable evidence to suggest that the President took these official actions not for an illegal purpose, but rather because he believed the investigation was politically motivated and undermined his Administration's efforts to govern.

Moreover, in evaluating the nature of the President's conduct, it bears emphasis that none of his requests to change the supervision of the investigation were actually carried out. The conduct under investigation is based entirely upon “directions” by the President to subordinates to take actions on his behalf that they did not undertake. In each instance, if the President truly wanted to cause those actions, he could have done it himself (for instance, ordering the Deputy Attorney General to terminate the Special Counsel or directing the Attorney General to unrecuse or to resign). After the President provided his direction, in each instance, the orders were not carried out. Of course, it is true that an act may constitute an attempt or an endeavor, even if unsuccessful. But the facts that the President could have given these directions himself, and did not remove any subordinate for failing to convey his directions, weigh against finding an intent to obstruct justice.

3. Conduct Related To Witnesses

The Special Counsel's Report also describes a variety of other actions taken by the President that could have had some effect on potential witnesses to the investigation. Those actions include the President's public and private comments concerning the recollections and testimony of potential witnesses, including the President's effort to encourage the White House Counsel, Don McGahn, to deny the newspaper reports that the President had directed McGahn to fire the Special Counsel; his involvement in responding to media interest in the Trump Tower meeting; and his public and private statements concerning witnesses, whom he appeared to praise or condemn based upon whether they were fighting the charges against them or cooperating with the investigation.

The President's actions on these matters more directly implicate the concerns of the obstruction statute. If the President were to perjure himself, tamper with witness testimony, or corruptly destroy evidence, then such actions would violate well-established law. But we do not believe that any of the actions described in the report would meet such a standard. None of these instances indicate that the President sought to conceal evidence of criminal conduct nor is there sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he sought to provide false evidence to the investigators.

For instance, when it comes to the President's request that McGahn deny the newspaper accounts, the Special Counsel recognizes that there is evidence suggesting that the President believed the newspaper stories to be false. The President repeatedly protested both to McGahn and to other witnesses that he believed that he had asked McGahn to advise the Deputy Attorney General about the Special Counsel's conflicts of interests and thereby induce the appointment of an unconflicted special counsel. The President vehemently denied telling McGahn that he wanted to “fire” the Special Counsel, and McGahn recalled the President's direction to be more ambiguous. While other evidence cuts against this understanding, there is insufficient evidence to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the President sought to induce McGahn to lie. In addition, at the time of this discussion, McGahn had already provided his recollection to investigators, and the President's principal focus was on rebutting those media reports. Given the timing of this conversation, there is insufficient evidence to conclude that the President's actions toward McGahn, which were themselves ambiguous, were intended to affect the investigation itself. Therefore, the evidence, in our judgment, does not suffice to warrant any criminal prosecution.

We likewise do not believe that the President's public statements exhorting witnesses like Flynn, Manafort, Stone, or Cohen, not to “flip” should be viewed as obstruction of justice. The Report makes clear that the President equated a witness's decision to “flip” with being induced by prosecutors to manufacture false evidence against others. We cannot say that the evidence would prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the President's statements, most of which were made publicly, were intended to induce any of those witnesses to conceal truthful evidence or to provide false evidence. Once again, this conclusion is buttressed by the absence of any clear evidence that these witnesses had information that would prove the President had committed a crime. The President's public statements could be viewed as efforts to defend himself from public criticism related to the Special Counsel’s investigation or to discourage the witnesses from making what the President believed might be false statements in exchange for a lesser sentence. Those statements do not warrant a prosecution for obstruction of justice.

D. Other Considerations

Although we have not identified any actions that present clear violations of the obstruction of justice statutes, there are other factors that would weigh against pursuing the President's actions as criminal violations. The Special Counsel's thorough investigation did not establish that the President committed any underlying crime related to Russian interference. As noted, in every successful obstruction case cited in the Report, the corrupt acts were undertaken to prevent the investigation and prosecution of a separate crime. The existence of such an offense is not a necessary element to proving an obstruction charge, but the absence of underlying guilt is relevant and powerful evidence in assessing whether otherwise innocent actions were undertaken with a corrupt motive. In the absence of an underlying offense, the most compelling inference in evaluating the President's conduct is that he reasonably believed that the Special Counsel's investigation was interfering with his governing agenda. Even if the President were objectively wrong about the intentions of the Special Counsel, many, if not all, of his actions could be viewed as lacking the intent element under the relevant statutes.

In addition, while our analysis would counsel against pursuing an obstruction charge against an ordinary party in the absence of any effort to impair evidence, there are additional prudential reasons that weigh against such an interpretation in these circumstances. Such a criminal prosecution would involve the application of a novel obstruction theory that arguably would apply to any official with the authority to take acts that could influence an investigation. Such an extension would involve serious questions of public policy and constitutional law that would weigh against pursuing criminal charges except under the clearest of cases.

RECOMMENDATION: We recommend that you conclude that, under the Principles of Federal Prosecution, the evidence developed during the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.

APPROVE: WP BARR 3/24/2019

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FBI: Trump mixed top secret docs with magazines, other items: The affidavit does not provide new details about 11 sets of classified records recovered during an Aug. 8 search at Mar-a-Lago but instead concerns a separate batch of 15 boxes the National Archives and Records Administration retrieved in January.
by Eric Tucker and Michael Balsamo
Associated Press
AUGUST 26, 2022 — 6:55PM

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YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

WASHINGTON — Fourteen of the 15 boxes recovered from former President Donald Trump's Florida estate early this year contained classified documents, many of them top secret, mixed in with miscellaneous newspapers, magazines and personal correspondence, according to an FBI affidavit released Friday.

No space at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate was authorized for the storage of classified material, according to the court papers, which laid out the FBI's rationale for searching the property this month, including "probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found."

The 32-page affidavit — heavily redacted to protect the safety of witnesses and law enforcement officials and "the integrity of the ongoing investigation" — offers the most detailed description to date of the government records being stored at Mar-a-Lago long after Trump left the White House. It also reveals the gravity of the government's concerns that the documents were there illegally.

The document makes clear how the haphazard retention of top secret government records, and the apparent failure to safeguard them despite months of entreaties from U.S. officials, has exposed Trump to fresh legal peril just as he lays the groundwork for another potential presidential run in 2024.

"The government is conducting a criminal investigation concerning the improper removal and storage of classified information in unauthorized spaces, as well as the unlawful concealment or removal of government records," an FBI agent wrote on the first page of the affidavit.

Documents previously made public show that federal agents are investigating potential violations of multiple federal laws, including one that governs gathering, transmitting or losing defense information under the Espionage Act. The other statutes address the concealment, mutilation or removal of records and the destruction, alteration or falsification of records in federal investigations.

Trump has long insisted, despite clear evidence to the contrary, that he fully cooperated with government officials. And he has rallied Republicans behind him by painting the search as a politically motivated witch hunt intended to damage his reelection prospects. He repeated that refrain on his social media site Friday, saying he and his representatives had had a close working relationship with the FBI and "GAVE THEM MUCH."

The affidavit does not provide new details about 11 sets of classified records recovered during the Aug. 8 search at Mar-a-Lago but instead concerns a separate batch of 15 boxes that the National Archives and Records Administration retrieved from the home in January. The Archives sent the matter to the Justice Department, indicating in its referral that a review showed "a lot" of classified materials, the affidavit says.

The affidavit made the case to a judge that a search of Mar-a-Lago was necessary due to the highly sensitive material found in those 15 boxes. Of 184 documents with classification markings, 25 were at the top secret level, the affidavit says. Some had special markings suggesting they included information from highly sensitive human sources or the collection of electronic "signals" authorized by a special intelligence court.

And some of those classified records were mixed with other documents, including newspapers, magazines and miscellaneous print-outs, the affidavit says, citing a letter from the Archives.

Douglas London, a former senior CIA officer and author of "The Recruiter," said this showed Trump's lack of respect for controls. "One of the rules of classified is you don't mix classified and unclassified so there's no mistakes or accidents," he said.

The affidavit shows how agents were authorized to search a large swath of Mar-a-Lago, including Trump's official post-presidential "45 Office," storage rooms and all other areas in which boxes or documents could be stored. They did not propose searching areas of the property used or rented by Mar-a-Lago members, such as private guest suites.

The FBI submitted the affidavit, or sworn statement, to a judge so it could obtain the warrant to search Trump's property. Affidavits typically contain vital information about an investigation, with agents spelling out the justification for why they want to search a particular location and why they believe they're likely to find evidence of a potential crime there.

The documents routinely remain sealed during pending investigations. But in an acknowledgment of the extraordinary public interest in the investigation, U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart on Thursday ordered the department by Friday to make public a redacted version of the affidavit.

In a separate document unsealed Friday, Justice Department officials said it was necessary to redact some information to "protect the safety and privacy of a significant number of civilian witnesses, in addition to law enforcement personnel, as well as to protect the integrity of the ongoing investigation."

The second half of the affidavit is almost entirely redacted, making it impossible to discern the scope of the investigation or where it might be headed. It does not reveal which individuals might be under investigation and it does not resolve core questions, such as why top secret documents were taken to Mar-a-Lago after the president's term despite even though classified information requires special storage.

Trump's Republican allies in Congress were largely silent Friday as the affidavit emerged, another sign of the GOP's reluctance to publicly part ways with the former president, whose grip on the party remains strong during the midterm election season. Both parties have demanded more information about the search, with lawmakers seeking briefings from the Justice Department and FBI once Congress returns from summer recess.

Though Trump's spokesman derided the investigation as "all politics," the affidavit makes clear the FBI search was hardly the first time federal law enforcement had expressed concerns about the records. The Justice Department's top counterintelligence official, for instance, visited Mar-a-Lago last spring to assess how the documents were being stored.

The affidavit includes excerpts from a June 8 letter in which a Justice Department official reminded a Trump lawyer that Mar-a-Lago did not include a secure location authorized to hold classified records. The official requested that the room at the estate where the documents had been stored be secured, and that the boxes that were moved from the White House to Mar-a-Lago "be preserved in that room in their current condition until further notice."

The back-and-forth culminated in the Aug. 8 search in which agents retrieved 11 sets of classified records.

The document unsealed Friday also offer insight into arguments the Trump legal team is expected to make. It includes a letter from Trump lawyer M. Evan Corcoran in which he asserts that a president has "absolute authority" to declassify documents and that "presidential actions involving classified documents are not subject to criminal sanction."

Mark Zaid, a longtime national security lawyer who has criticized Trump for his handling of classified information, said the letter was "blatantly wrong" to assert Trump could declassify "anything and everything."

"There are some legal, technical defenses as to certain provisions of the espionage act whether it would apply to the president," Zaid said. "But some of those provisions make no distinction that would raise a defense."

In addition, the affidavit includes a footnote from the FBI agent who wrote it observing that one of the laws that may have been violated doesn't even use the term "classified information" but instead criminalizes the unlawful retention of national defense information.

____

Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in New York and Nomaan Merchant, Michael Balsamo and Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report.

Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP

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Redacted affidavit says documents at Mar-a-Lago could compromise human intelligence sources
by Glenn Thrush, Alan Feuer and Maggie Haberman
New York Times
Aug 26, 2022

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department asked to search former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence after retrieving an initial batch of highly classified national security documents, out of concern that their disclosure could compromise “clandestine human sources” used in intelligence gathering, according to a redacted version of the affidavit used to obtain the warrant.

The affidavit — including more than three dozen pages of evidence and legal arguments presented by the Justice Department’s national security division plus supporting documents — describes the government’s monthslong push to recover highly classified materials taken from the White House by a former president who viewed state documents as his private property.

The heavily redacted affidavit was released Friday, 18 days after FBI agents descended on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and private club with a court-authorized search warrant and carted off additional material marked as classified.

Under orders from the judge in the case, Bruce E. Reinhart, the Justice Department had proposed extensive redactions to the affidavit in an effort to shield witnesses from intimidation or retribution. The government did so to protect the broader integrity of its inquiry into whether Trump had violated the Espionage Act and other laws by willfully retaining national security records that he was required to turn over to the National Archives.

The search, the affidavit reveals, was prompted by an intensive FBI review of an initial 15 boxes of materials Trump turned over to the archives in January, after months of government pressure.

In those boxes, they found a total of 184 documents with classification markings, including 25 marked “top secret.”

But agents were most alarmed to discover that many of the materials included the highest national security restrictions, requiring they be held in controlled government storage facilities, and barring them from ever being shared with foreign governments, to protect “clandestine human sources” employed by the intelligence community to collect information around the world, according to the documents.

The affidavit does not disclose the nature of the material or why Trump chose to retain it.

Those concerns, and the continued unwillingness of Trump to return sensitive documents that the archives knew remained in his possession, prompted the department’s leaders to move quickly, according to officials.

The redactions, which blanket about half of the affidavit, covered many of the most sensitive details of the Justice Department’s investigation; whole swaths of the filing are blacked out, included most of pages 11 through 16. As a result, there are limited references to the witnesses or investigative methods that led to the findings laid out by lawyers with the department’s national security division, who persuaded Attorney General Merrick Garland to sign off on the highly unusual request for a search.

On Friday morning, before the documents were released, Trump attacked the department on Truth Social, the social media platform he uses to communicate since being banned from Twitter after the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021. He called the Justice Department and the FBI “political Hacks and Thugs” who “had no right under the Presidential Records Act to storm Mar-a-Lago and steal everything in sight, including Passports and privileged documents.”

The fact that any of the affidavit was made public is a remarkable turn of events. Such documents are almost always left entirely sealed until criminal charges are filed, and even then they tend to emerge only as important legal issues in a case are litigated. There is no indication the Justice Department plans to file charges in the documents case anytime soon.

The partial release came after several news organizations, including The New York Times, filed a motion this month asking Reinhart to unseal the entire document, citing enormous public interest in the search of Mar-a-Lago.

The Justice Department responded by saying the affidavit, if unsealed, would provide a road map to its investigation and wanted Reinhart to keep it fully under wraps. Trump’s attorneys did not object, to the astonishment of Garland’s team, who believe the disclosures portray the former president’s actions in a deeply unflattering light.

At a hearing last week, Reinhart, apparently seeking a middle ground, floated the idea of releasing portions of the affidavit. He ordered the government to send proposed redactions to him by noon Thursday and issued his decision to release the redacted version within hours.

Justice Department officials had suggested they would push hard to scrub anything that could expose witnesses in the case. After the search at Mar-a-Lago, the FBI reported a surge in threats against its agents; an armed man tried to breach the FBI's Cincinnati field office before being killed in a shootout with local police.

The Trump team has sought to portray the search as unjust and unnecessary, claiming there were continuing talks between Trump’s side and the Justice Department that led to the first tranche of boxes of documents being returned to the archives in January.

But when archives officials retrieved the 15 boxes of material in January, they opened them to find mountains of paper, more than 700 pages of classified documents because some individual documents contained multiple pages, some the most sensitive and restricted that exist in government, known as Special Access Programs.

The archives alerted the Justice Department soon after with a referral, and a grand jury was convened.

The released affidavit does not reveal the amount of classified material turned over to federal officials during a June 3 meeting between Justice Department officials and Trump’s attorneys, which came after the grand jury had been formed.

Trump repeatedly resisted entreaties from several advisers to turn over the material, as early as last summer, according to multiple people briefed on the matter. “They’re mine,” he said of the boxes, according to three people familiar with what took place.

Trump went through at least some of the boxes in late 2021, although it is unclear if he went through them all.

His lead attorneys in the case met on June 3 with Jay Bratt, the chief of the counterespionage section of the national security division at the Justice Department. Shortly before that meeting, Evan Corcoran, one of Trump’s attorneys, went to the basement to search through the boxes for classified material, according to two people briefed on the matter.

The Justice Department also gathered information from at least one witness suggesting that there might be more presidential material at Mar-a-Lago. On June 22, the department subpoenaed surveillance footage from various places in the club, including the hallway outside a basement storage area where Corcoran and Christina Bobb, another of Trump’s attorneys, had led Bratt nearly three weeks earlier to show him where documents had been kept.

The video showed boxes being moved out of the storage room sometime around the contact from the Justice Department, people familiar with the tapes said. And it also showed boxes being slipped into different containers, which alarmed investigators.

On Aug. 8, investigators found additional material, presidential records and classified documents in the basement area, as well as in a container on the floor of Trump’s closet in his office, a former dressing room in the bridal suite above the club’s ballroom.

The closet had a hotel-style safe, but it did not contain the materials investigators sought, and was too small to hold the documents he had, according to several people familiar with the events.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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Weeks before Mar-a-Lago search, ex-Trump DOD official vowed to publish classified documents from National Archives: Kash Patel said he planned to post documents from the National Archives online.
by Will Steakin, Alexander Mallin, and Katherine Faulders
August 17, 2022, 3:49 PM

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[ALI VELSHI] DAMAGE ASSESSMENT. ARE WE TALKING ABOUT DONALD TRUMP AND THE DAMAGE HE'S DONE TO THE INSTITUTION BY TAKING THINGS LIKE THIS? OR ARE WE TALKING ABOUT WHAT MARK ZAID AND I WERE JUST TALKING ABOUT, THAT THERE ARE PEOPLE WHOSE LIVES MIGHT BE IN DANGER TONIGHT, BECAUSE INFORMATION THAT SHOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN ANYWHERE CLOSE TO THE PUBLIC WAS SITTING AROUND MAR-A-LAGO FOR 18 MONTHS, APPARENTLY?

[REP. ERIC SWALWELL] REAL LIVES ARE AT RISK. I'M TALKING U.S. TROOPS, MOST IMPORTANTLY, BECAUSE IN THE AFFIDAVIT, THEY REFERRED TO NATIONAL DEFENSE INFORMATION. THAT MEANS U.S. TROOPS, THEIR MOVEMENTS, THEIR LOCATIONS, AND THAT HAS BEEN JEOPARDIZED BY DONALD TRUMP. IT ALSO MEANS, AS WAS REFERENCED IN SOURCES, PEOPLE WHO HELPED THE U.S. GOVERNMENT OBTAIN OR ACHIEVE OUR NATIONAL SECURITY OBJECTIVES. AND JUST TONIGHT, THE NEW YORK TIMES IS OUT WITH A NEW PIECE ABOUT A CIA MEMO, REGARDING THE LOSS OF HUMAN SOURCES. I CAN'T COMMENT, YOU KNOW, ON THAT MEMO. BUT THE STORY, AT LEAST, HIGHLIGHTS THE CONCERN THAT IF DONALD TRUMP HAS THIS INFORMATION ABOUT U.S. SOURCES IT JEOPARDIZES THEIR LIVES. SO, THESE ARE REAL LIVES THAT ARE AT RISK. AND AGAIN, ALI, WHAT IS SO INTERESTING HERE, OR SO TELLING, DONALD TRUMP, FOUR YEARS AS PRESIDENT, WAS THE FIRST PRESIDENT IN MODERN HISTORY WHO CHOSE NOT TO RECEIVE AN INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING, WHEN EVERY OTHER PRESIDENT, AND JOE BIDEN DID, AND DOES RECEIVE INTELLIGENCE BRIEFINGS. SO, WHY WOULD HE TAKE THAT INFORMATION NOW? WE CAN ONLY CONCLUDE THE WORST, BECAUSE HE HAS ACTED THE WORST IN THE PAST. HE LEVERAGED U.S. MILITARY AID TO UKRAINE, TO GET DIRT ON JOE BIDEN. SO, YOU HAVE TO ASSUME HE ONLY WANTED THAT INFORMATION TO HELP HIMSELF, IF HE EVER NEEDED.

-- Trump Wanted Classified Info ‘To Help Himself,’ Says Rep. Swalwell, by Ali Velshi

donald trump jr suggested on monday that the united states would be safer if his father, former president donald trump, had stashed the nuclear codes at his mar-a-lago golf resort in palm beach florida. the eldest trump son shared his opinion, which resembled a stand-up comedy routine, at an event in support of florida republican congressman matt gaetzs's re-election campaign. let's take a look at don jr's remarks.

[Don Trump, Jr.] donald trump has the nuclear codes! [Applause] in the linen closet at mar-a-lago! i'm like, "really?" by the way, for the record i'd say that if donald trump actually still had the nuclear codes, it'd probably be good. enemies -- our enemies -- might actually be like, "okay, maybe let's not mess with them," unlike when they look at joe biden and they say, "you know what? we should attack now.

-- Donald Trump Jr says 'it would probably be good' if 'nuclear codes' were stashed at Mar a Lago

In June of this year, seven weeks before the FBI raided former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in search of classified materials, former Defense Department appointee and outspoken Trump loyalist Kash Patel vowed to retrieve classified documents from the National Archives and publish them on his website.

Trump had just issued a letter instructing the National Archives to grant Patel and conservative journalist John Solomon access to nonpublic administration records, according to reporting at the time.

Patel, who under Trump had been the chief of staff for the acting defense secretary, claimed in a string of interviews that Trump had declassified a trove of "Russiagate documents" in the final days of his administration. But Patel claimed Trump's White House counsel had blocked the release of those documents, and instead had them delivered to the National Archives.

"I've never told anyone this because it just happened," Patel said in an interview on a pro-Trump podcast on June 22. "I'm going to identify every single document that they blocked from being declassified at the National Archives, and we're going to start putting that information out next week."

Patel did not provide a clear explanation of how he would legally or practically obtain the documents.

"White House counsel and company disobeyed a presidential order and implemented federal governmental bureaucracy on the way out to basically send the stash to the National Archives, and now that's where it's at," Patel said in a subsequent interview on June 23 on a different pro-Trump internet show.

Trump and his allies have for years pushed aggressively to declassify materials related to the FBI's "Crossfire Hurricane" investigation that examined alleged ties between Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and Russia -- a probe that was later put under the control of Robert Mueller following his appointment as special counsel. Patel, who previously served under then-Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) during Nunes' time as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has claimed that nonpublic information provided to Congress undercut the Russia probe and helped support Trump's claim that the investigation lacked merit.

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Kash Patel participates in panel at CPAC Texas 2022 conference in Dallas, Aug. 5, 2022. Lev Radin/Sipa USA via AP

The day before he left office, Trump authorized the declassification of a set of documents related to the Russia probe. The memorandum, released in January 2021, acknowledged that "portions of the documents in the binder have remained classified and have not been released to the Congress or the public."

So according to Patel, Trump asked him to work on retrieving the classified documents from the National Archives and then release them to the public. "President Trump was like, 'Who knows those documents better than anyone?' And I was like, 'If you want me to go, I'll go,'" Patel said.

"I know what's there" in the Archives, said Patel. "I can't still talk about them, but the whole process is going to be: Identify the documents, whether it's Russiagate, Hunter Biden, impeachment, Jan 6th -- and put them out."

Erica Knight, a spokesperson for Patel, told ABC News that Patel was acting as "a representative on behalf of President Trump to work with the National Archives to get them to disclose information."

"The GSA has their own policies and procedures for how presidential records must be handled, which Patel is in full cooperation with," Knight said of the federal government's General Services Administration.

Patel's comments claiming that Trump had directed him to retrieve classified documents came in the middle of the former president's growing dispute with National Archives officials. By June, the National Archives had asked the Justice Department to investigate the former president's handling of White House records, after National Archives officials had in January retrieved 15 boxes of records that had been improperly taken to Trump's home in violation of the Presidential Records Act.

And while Patel has said the former president said to declassify "a mountain of documents," experts say there are protocols in place to ensure that national security is not harmed when information is declassified -- even by the president.

"[Patel] is lashing out at the bureaucracy, but it's that bureaucracy and those protocols that are in place to prevent damage to our national security by an inappropriate disclosure of national security information," said John Cohen, a former Department of Homeland Security official who is now an ABC News contributor.

"I can't stress how important those protocols are," Cohen said. "For everyone who has a clearance, it is ingrained in your brain that even an inadvertent disclosure of top secret information could cause great harm to national security."

According to Patel, the plan in June was to retrieve the documents from the National Archives and publish them on his website "for free," then "make a big announcement every time" a new document was published.

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Former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate stands in Palm Beach, Fla., Aug. 10, 2022. Steve Helber/AP

Patel, a former GOP congressional aide who worked on Trump's National Security Council before joining the Pentagon, was also involved in security preparations for the Jan. 6 counting of the electoral vote on Capitol Hill, according to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, citing records obtained from the Defense Department.

Last September, the Jan. 6 committee issued subpoenas to four former senior Trump administration officials, including Patel, who appeared before the committee for several hours in December.

This past April, Patel was brought on as a member of the board of directors for the former president's media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, which launched the "Truth Social" platform in February. Patel also published a pro-Trump children's book titled "The Plot Against the King."

As of last month, Patel was still pursuing his plan to publish documents currently in the National Archives.

"Now we're in this fight," Petal told conservative commentator Benny Johnson in a July 4 interview. "I'm working on it. And of course, the bureaucracy is getting in the way, but that's not going to stop us."

"I will be going to the National Archives in the coming weeks, I will be identifying those documents," he said.