It couldn’t have something to do with the Russia investigation, could it?
Many people have wondered if Trump’s document haul had to do with his desire to publish classified information about the Russia investigation. After all, he said he was going to do it. Here’s a scoop from Murray Waas about the Special Counsel investigation:
On the eve of Donald Trump’s last day in office as President, Trump sent a memo to his attorney general, and also the directors of National Intelligence and the CIA, directing them to declassify thousands of pages of highly classified government papers pertaining to the FBI’s investigation into the Russian Federation’s covert intervention into the 2016 US presidential election to help elect Trump and defeat Hillary Clinton.
But Trump was stymied in his efforts to make the records public, leading the outgoing president to rage to aides that the documents would never see the light of day.
Now, sources close to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation tell me that prosecutors have questioned at least three people about whether Trump’s frustrations may have been a motive in Trump taking at thousands of pages of presidential papers, a significant number of them classified, from the White House to Mar-A-Largo, in potential violation of federal law. One of these people was compelled to testify before a federal grand jury, the sources say.
The sources say that prosecutors appear to believe the episode may be central to determining Trump’s intent for his unauthorized removal from the White House of the papers. Insight into the president’s frame of mind—his intent and motivation, are likely to be the foundational building blocks of any case that the special counsel considers seeking against Trump.
Towards that end, the Special Counsel has zeroed in on conversations and communications between the Justice Department, the White House counsel, then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, other then-senior White House aides, and Trump, in the final days—and even the final hours of his presidency.
In his January 19, 2021. memo, entitled “Declassification of Certain Materials Related to the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation”, Trump ordered these records “be declassified to the maximum extent possible.”
Trump and his allies had promised that these documents would decisively and conclusively corroborate his thus-far baseless claims and conspiracy theories that the FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies had spied on his 2016 presidential campaign with the intent to thwart his election, and failing that, to drive him from office on false evidence.
There’s quite a bit more at the link including the fact that Kash Patel implied in public statements that’s what it was and has been immunized by the prosecutors and so required to tell the truth. I suspect that’s why Trump is having a daily meltdown over Jack Smith, calling him a Nazi thug and a criminal. Somebody told him something about the Grand Jury investigation.
If you’re interested in following this story, Waas would be a good Substack sub. He’s got great contacts in this world and his stuff is always interesting.