As the Biden Department of Justice pleads with the Supreme Court not to intervene regarding the Mar-a-Lago raid, we have a new-ish development with this story. A former staffer has stepped forward to spill what the former president allegedly ordered regarding the documents in question that FBI agents seized during their August raid on Mar-a-Lago. Is this account authentic? Who knows, but we’re back to these nuggets that don’t mean anything, though the liberal press will treat it like something akin to Nixon’s CREEP fund. These updates are an unwanted throwback to the series of stories centering on the email exchanges between the National Archives and Trump’s lawyers. None of the articles alluded to any illegality being conducted on behalf of the Trump team at any point. It showed that Trump’s lawyers were cooperating, undercutting the obstruction of justice narrative that brewed for a hot second regarding his federal ransacking. The latest bombshell: Trump ordered the documents to be moved to Mar-a-Lago (via NBC News):
One of Donald Trump's employees told FBI agents the former president ordered boxes of documents at Mar-a-Lago to be moved before federal agents searched the property, according to a source familiar with the matter.
The source also told NBC News that the FBI obtained security video showing people moving boxes out of a storage room at Trump's Florida estate.
The Washington Post first reported the employee's account on Wednesday.
When reached by NBC News, the FBI and Justice Department declined to comment.
The worker’s account offers new details about Trump’s actions before FBI agents executed a search warrant on Aug. 8 to retrieve classified material from Mar-a-Lago based on the Justice Department's assessment in the search warrant affidavit that there were likely documents and records at Mar-a-Lago “constituting evidence, contraband, fruits of crime and other items illegally possessed” in violation of three laws involving mishandling of government documents.
The president of the United States is the ultimate authority to declassify any record the office chooses. Trump was president and declassified troves of documents relating to the FBI spy operation against his 2016 campaign, Crossfire Hurricane, which makes Obama, Biden, and the DOJ look horrible. Then, there’s a raid to seize documents that the federal government feels were improperly taken. The Presidential Records Act isn’t a criminal statute. There were no nuclear secrets sprawled all over the property. It wasn’t an unsecured location—the Secret Service guards it. All documents are handled by staffers of the former president who hold security clearances. And the FBI told the Trump legal team to keep all records on the property in the basement storage area in a June letter. The agents ransacked the home on August 8.
Trump declassified those records and took them with him, which is no different than Bill Clinton keeping taped interviews about his presidency, which is something of interest to the National Archives. Still, slick Willy is a Democrat—he can bypass the rules.
There’s a legal fight about whether the special master will have access to review 100 or so documents that the Justice Department says only they can check unless we want a national security crisis. It’s been weeks, and there’s been no smoking gun to charge Trump concerning this arguably unconstitutional raid on the home of a former president.