As the final crime committed by the twice impeached ex-president who lost the popular vote twice and tried to stage a coup plays out, a crime involving the theft of a trove of highly classified materials, the impossibility of Trump escaping accountability yet again seems to grow more and more dim.
Breaking News: The Justice Department is said to have retrieved more than 300 documents with classified markings from Donald Trump since January. https://t.co/VznaKOAs8d
— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 23, 2022
The Justice Department attempted to retrieve the documents throughout 2021, and in May of 2022, the Justice Department issued a subpoena for those documents. In June, Justice Department officials met with Donald Trump and his legal team and retrieved documents they insisted were all of those taken from Washington.
When the FBI conducted a search in July, more boxes of classified materials, some marked at the highest classification levels, were found. On Monday, the New York Times revealed the extent of sensitive, classified information was taken. The amount is staggering.
‘In total, the government has recovered more than 300 documents with classified markings from Mr. Trump since he left office, the people said: that first batch of documents returned in January, another set provided by Mr. Trump’s aides to the Justice Department in June and the material seized by the F.B.I. in the search this month.’
I had a security clearance prior to being in Congress. And as a Member of Congress, I have a top secret security clearance.
Let me be clear: if I went through classified documents and kept 300 of them in my home, I would be arrested immediately and indicted. https://t.co/jlAimZYgrZ
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) August 23, 2022
One of Trump’s attorneys, former OAN anchor Christina Bobb, may need to hire her own attorney. The now-frequent guest on Fox News has stated publicly that she was present during the search, but she was also present during the initial return of documents in June and signed her name to a sworn statement that turned out to be false.
‘Mr. Corcoran then drafted a statement, which Ms. Bobb, who is said to be the custodian of the documents, signed. It asserted that, to the best of her knowledge, all classified material that was there had been returned, according to two people familiar with the statement.’
https://t.co/syieiZWdJu
The US government recovered more than 300 documents with classified markings from Mar-a-Lago, including material from the CIA, the National Security Agency, and the FBI.He has no defenses.
And he filed a silly motion for a special master🤦♀️
— Teri Kanefield (@Teri_Kanefield) August 23, 2022
Officials investigating the matter now face not only assessing the level of crime committed as a result of the documents’ removal but also the potential danger their removal may have caused. Investigators have requested security footage of the area, which may give some indication as to their concerns.
‘While much of the footage showed hours of club employees walking through the busy corridor, some of it raised concerns for investigators, according to people familiar with the matter. It revealed people moving boxes in and out, and in some cases, appearing to change the containers some documents were held in. The footage also showed other parts of the property.’
The U.S. government has recovered more than 300 documents marked classified from Mar-a-Lago since former President Trump left office, according to The New York Times. The documents include more than 150 retrieved by the National Archives in January. https://t.co/oHwjz8yJiE
— The Associated Press (@AP) August 23, 2022