Oh THOSE Classified Documents In Trump's Trash Palace Basement!
Not to put too fine a point on it, SHIT'S NUTS.
If you were waiting for the other shoe to drop with the warrant for Mar-a-Lago, you probably heard that massive thud just now from CNN . Turns out that there's been a grand jury investigating Trump's retention of government property — including classified documents — for months, and when the Justice Department tried paying him a personal visit so he could just give it all back on the down low, Trump said "No."
Earlier reporting from CNN had a group of Justice Department lawyers including Jay Bratt, chief of the counterintelligence and export control section at the Justice Department, meeting with Trump's lawyers Evan Corcoran and Christina Bobb at Trump's club in early June. At the DOJ lawyers' request, Trump's attorneys took the delegation to a basement storage locker where boxes of White House documents were being stored next to Trump's shoes and sweaters. According to CNN, "[a] source said some of the documents shown to investigators had top secret markings."
Hmmm, looks like Bobb forgot to mention that when she was accusing the FBI of planting evidence on her boss!
But why was Trump keeping boxes of documents belonging to the federal government, even those without classification markings, in the cellar? And why didn't the government take possession of them then and there?
Good questions! All that we know at this point is that Bratt then emailed Corcoran and asked him to put decent lock on the door. You know, in case there are any foreign nationals with access to the non-public areas of the facility.
As CNN reported this morning, a grand jury had already issued a subpoena for sensitive national security documents before the June meeting. So much for all the wingnuts yelling about the Justice Department busting down the door in a gross breach of decorum when a polite subpoena would have done the trick. Ditto for Donald Trump's whining about how cooperative he's been with the Justice Department, omitting to mention that he was responding to a compulsory court order. Or not responding, if, as is reported, he retained classified documents after being told in no uncertain terms to hand them over.
Giving credit where it's due, disgraced reporter John Solomon was first to report the existence of the grand jury subpoena, writing yesterday that the former president "voluntarily cooperated" with the subpoena, even handing over surveillance footage of the 60 square foot security locker. But, as national security reporter Marcy Wheeler points out , he left out one or two teensy details. Like the part about the lawyers refusing to hand over classified documents when they were "voluntarily" cooperating.
CNN reporters Evan Perez, Gabby Orr, and Pamela Brown got the scoop on this amazing cooperation from Trump's lawyers:
During the meeting, Trump's attorneys showed the investigators documents -- some of them had markings indicating they were classified. The agents were given custody of the documents that were marked top secret or higher, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Let's unpack that, shall we?
There are three levels of classification of government documents. From most restrictive to least, they are: Top Secret, Secret, and Confidential. Having already received a subpoena for all classified documents taken out of the White House, Trump's lawyers showed the Justice Department officials a stack of classified stuff they hadn't handed over, and then refused to give back anything that wasn't marked Top Secret.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but that is fucking crazy .
And it doesn't take a genius to figure out why Trump isn't willing to show anyone that warrant. Because the part where it says "please 'splain to the judge why you think there's evidence of a crime at Mar-a-Lago" probably says something along the lines of "because we saw improperly withheld classified documents in the closet, and that fuckin' idiot's lawyers told us to go pound sand when we said 'hand 'em over.'"
You know, ALLEGEDLY.
Please to enjoy law professor Jonathan Turley showing his whole ass to Sean Hannity Tuesday night, as quoted by Solomon, noted Turley ass aficionado.
”I mean, the idea that he was subject to a subpoena, complied with a subpoena, didn't challenge it, voluntarily showed the storage room to the agents, followed their advice, secured it to meet their demands. All of that is hardly a basis for saying now we need to send in 40 FBI agents on a raid,” Turley complained, wondering if the DOJ had disclosed all of Trump's excellent "voluntary cooperation" when it applied for the warrant. “I mean, if the subpoena worked the first time, then presumably a second subpoena would work the second time if there were remaining documents.”
In point of fact, the subpoena didn't work the first time. Nor did it work when high ranking Justice Department officials showed up and tried to give Trump and his lawyers a chance to quietly fork it over before things got completely out of hand.
And here we are, with the New York Times confirming CNN's reporting, and describing sources saying the documents retained were "so sensitive in nature, and related to national security, that the Justice Department had to act."
LOCK HIM UP.
[ CNN / CNN / Just the News / NYT ]
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