Last year, officials with the National Archives discovered that Trump had taken a slew of documents and other government material with him when he left the White House at the end of his tumultuous term in January 2021. That material was supposed to have been sent to the archives under the terms of the Presidential Records Act.
Trump returned 15 boxes of material in January of this year. When archivists examined the material, they found many pages of documents with classified markings and referred the matter to the Justice Department, which began an investigation and convened a grand jury.
In the spring, the department issued a subpoena to Trump seeking additional documents that it believed may have been in his possession. The former president was repeatedly urged by advisers to return what remained, despite what they described as his desire to continue to hold onto some documents.
WE INTERRUPT THIS NYT STORY TO BRING YOU THE FOLLOWING NYT ANTI-WAPO DISCLAIMER:
What we consider before using anonymous sources. How do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.
In an effort to resolve the dispute [over the classified docs] Mr. Bratt [Jay I. Bratt, the top counterintelligence official in the Justice Department’s national security division. ] and other officials visited Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., in early June, briefly meeting Mr. Trump while they were there. Two of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, M. Evan Corcoran and Christina Bobb, spoke with Mr. Bratt and a small number of investigators he traveled with, people briefed on the meeting said.
Mr. Corcoran and Ms. Bobb showed Mr. Bratt and his team boxes holding material Mr. Trump had taken from the White House that were being kept in a storage area, the people said.
According to two people briefed on the visit, Mr. Bratt and his team left with additional material marked classified, and around that time also obtained the written declaration from a Trump lawyer attesting that all the material marked classified in the boxes had been turned over.
A short time after the meeting, according to people briefed on it, Mr. Bratt sent Mr. Corcoran an email telling him to get a more secure padlock for the room. Trump’s team complied.
What? Get a more secure padlock? That was their instruction? Not, "don't keep the presidential documents in a resort storage room. PERIOD," just get a better lock? And the Trumpists got a better padlock. Did that not leave said Trumpist Trash with the impression that everything was copacetic, violation of law wise? GET A BETTER PADLOCK. UNbelievable.
The Justice Department also subpoenaed surveillance footage from Mar-a-Lago recorded over a 60-day period, including views from outside the storage room. 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.
That activity prompted concern among investigators about the handling of the material. It is not clear when precisely the footage was from during the lengthy back-and-forth between Justice Department officials and Mr. Trump’s advisers, or whether the subpoena to Mr. Trump seeking additional documents had already been issued.
Quasi's goddammit, DO YOU KNOW (DO YOUR WAPO-PROOF SOURCES KNOW) IF THE SURVEILLANCE IS RELEVANT TO THE DOJ INQUIRY? IF YOU/YOUR SOURCES DON'T KNOW WHY DID YOU MENTION IT? HOW CAN YOUR SOURCE KNOW THAT THE SURVEILLANCE WAS FROM A 60-DAY PERIOD AND NOT KNOW THE MONTHS?
... Budowich [a Trump clown] said it was “no surprise that boxes may be moved in and out of a storage room.”
It is no surprise that Budowich-the-clown would find it no surprise that the top secret national security documents can be kept in "a storage room" along with other memorabilia such as Stormy Daniels porn tape, golf balls, penis enhancement devices, etc.
“That’s not news,” he said. “If there was actual concern, the D.O.J. could have asked, just like they had previously, and they would have, again, received full cooperation.”
But query Quasi's: Does Budowich-the-clown not stumbles uncontrollably into a legitimate point? Do your sources know if stuff other than national security docs were stored in the storage room? Was there more than one storage area that Fibby found top secret docs in? Could not Top Counterintelligence Official Bratt have instructed the clown not to move boxes in and out in addition to the seminal get-a-better-lock instruct?
In recent months, investigators were in contact with roughly half a dozen of Trump’s current aides who had knowledge of how the documents that had been kept at Mar-a-Lago were handled, two people briefed on the approaches said. At least one witness provided the investigators with information that led them to want to further press Trump for material, according to a person familiar with the inquiry.
And thus the search warrant. Not a big help, Quasi's.
