What’s in the warrant?
Federal agents removed about a dozen boxes of materials from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and issued a warrant indicating the search pertained to possible violations surrounding classified information and the Presidential Records Act, a Trump lawyer confirmed to POLITICO on Tuesday.
News of the specifics of the search were first reported by The Wall Street Journal, which wrote that agents walked away with roughly 10 boxes of material after the Monday search.
They could all be empty for all we know. Or not. Reports circulating say the content of documents sought is too sensitive even to describe.
Marcy Wheeler proposes a list of what might be in the 10 or 12 boxes. Likely, more than the Presidential Records Act is in play in the search given who visited Mar-a-Lago earlier this summer (CNN, emphasis mine):
In early June, a handful of investigators made a rare visit to the property seeking more information about potentially classified material from Trump’s time in the White House that had been taken to Florida. The four investigators, including Jay Bratt, the chief of the counterintelligence and export control section at the Justice Department, sat down with two of Trump’s attorneys, Bobb and Evan Corcoran, according to a source present for the meeting.
Bratt investigates espionage, Wheeler notes. Suggestions from the right that Trump merely retained personal keepsakes are bullshit.
Documents Wheeler speculates Trump might be reluctant to let go (Emptywheel):
Trump would be apt to take classified documents pertaining to the following topics:
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- The transcript of the “perfect phone call” with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other documents pertaining to his first impeachment
- Notes on his meetings with other foreign leaders, especially Vladimir Putin and Saudi royals, including Trump’s July 16, 2018 meeting with Putin in Helsinki
- Information surrounding the Jamal Khashoggi execution (and other materials that make Jared Kushner’s current ties to Mohammed bin Salman suspect)
- Policy discussions surrounding Qatar, which tie to other influence peddling investigations (for which Barrack asked specifically)
- Intelligence reports on Russian influence operations
- Details pertaining to security efforts in the lead-up to and during January 6
- Intelligence reports adjacent to Trump’s false claims of election fraud (for example, pertaining to Venezuelan spying)
- Highly sensitive NSA documents pertaining to a specific foreign country that Mike Ellis was trying to hoard as boxes were being packed in January 2021
For many if not most of these documents, if Trump were refusing to turn them over, it might amount to obstruction of known investigations or prosecutions — Barrack’s, Rudy’s, or Trump’s own, among others. Thus, refusing to turn them over, by itself, might constitute an additional crime, particularly if the stolen documents were particularly damning.
Click through to the Mike Ellis link above. It’s chilling.
Finally, Wheeler reminds that press complaints about non-release of the warrant (by the Department of Justice) are best directed to Trump himself.
Even conservative flack Hugh Hewitt agrees (Washington Post):
Still, the American public needs to see the warrant — all of it. The former president has a copy; he should make it public. It likely lists the items to be seized and the laws allegedly violated. The affidavit supporting the warrant is probably sealed, former prosecutors say, and Attorney General Merrick Garland can seek to unseal it.
Citizens need to know whether this a reasonable search based on probable cause of some crime by someone with access to Mar-a-Lago — as a judge has clearly decided there is probable cause to conclude — or yet another unmerited strike at the 45th president by the latest in the long line of former federal officials who have tried to take Donald Trump down a peg, or behind bars, and failed.
Release the warrant, Donald. Make our day.
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