Mar-a-Lago footage subpoenaed by DoJ sparks speculation Trump may still have some classified documents

Authored by independent.co.uk and submitted by brithus

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Surveillance video subpoenaed by the Department of Justice has raised concerns that Donald Trump may still have some classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

Investigators from the DOJ subpoenaed video from a 60-day period “including views from outside the storage room”, reported The New York Times.

“According to a person briefed on the matter, the footage showed that, after one instance in which Justice Department officials were in contact with Mr. Trump’s team, boxes were moved in and out of the room,” reported Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush for the newspaper.

“That activity prompted concern among investigators about the handling of the material.”

The Times says that it is not clear exactly when the footage was from.

But Trump observers took to Twitter to raise their concerns.

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

And Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks, added: “Trump Lawyer Told Justice Dept. That Classified Material Had Been Returned. Obviously that raises many questions since it was false. If true, FBI couldn’t have left with 21 more boxes in August.”

Bill Kristol, who was Dan Quayle’s chief of staff tweeted, “Whoa. Let me amplify. WHOA.”

“...of course, maybe Trump just had a standing order that the classified/magically de-classified documents be moved around every now and then so they could get some air…”

Mr Trump himself took to Truth Social on Sunday and called for the FBI to return some of the documents taken in last week’s raid.

The former president claimed in the post that some of the documents were protected under attorney-client privilege and should not have been seized in the first place.

4wry_reddit on August 14th, 2022 at 17:30 UTC »

A timeline that is very relevant:

Jan 2022: 15 boxes are returned to NARA (the archives was well aware documents were missing, and discoved classified documents within those 15 boxes) Spring 2022: Subpoena for additional documents (i.e. explicit requests to return everything) June 3, 2022: FBI officials visit Mar-A-Lago June 8, 2022: FBI request an additional padlock for remaining documents to be installed June 22, 2022: FBI subpoenas surveillance footage

Note at that point the FBI was probably doing an assessment of who was accessing the documents and damage evaluations. Allegedly the footage showed boxes being moved AFTER the supoeana and padlock installation. The latter would be of utmost concern and probable cause. The supeana was not complied with, and the FBI was likely actively investigating at this point.

August 8th: FBI executes search warrant

The set of TS/SCI documents alone is a crime since those cannot be removed from SCIFs and cannot be de-classified without the approval of the DOE if they pertain to nuclear information. Besides document are not declassified until officially stamped as such.

The legal defense circulating is contradicting itself, e.g. the documents cannot be both declassified (they are not) and planted (they are not). This is as serious as it gets.

p6one6 on August 14th, 2022 at 17:21 UTC »

My intuition goes directly to files missing that they believe could have been sold to foreign governments.

geologicalnoise on August 14th, 2022 at 17:11 UTC »

Trump certainly has adopted Russia's mantra of "and then it got worse".