Per a new report from The New York Times that focuses on recent developments and newly available information in the criminal case against Donald Trump that concerns his handling of classified documents from his time in office, federal prosecutors have moved to obtain — via a subpoena — security footage from Trump’s golf property at Bedminster, New Jersey.
That effort took place earlier in the investigation, and as it’s unclear there’s an active battle over compliance combined with the successful acquisition of Mar-a-Lago tapes, it’s likely safe to assume prosecutors got these tapes. Trump has spent time at these premises on a series of notable occasions, from his period of transitioning into the presidency to last summer, when authorities were trying to recover classified documents.
The contents of the recordings that prosecutors sought that cover space at the property aren’t immediately clear, but the grounds turned out to figure prominently into Donald’s criminal indictment in the classified docs case. Allegedly, Trump aide Walt Nauta, whose involvement with Trump dates back to Donald’s time in office, loaded storage boxes with Trump onto a plane that took the then-former president to the Bedminster property, and it was also at the New Jersey grounds where Trump had a meeting with several individuals where he’s suspected — and alleged by prosecutors — to have shown off sensitive materials to definitely unauthorized third parties.
An audio recording of a portion of that meeting has been published by media outlets, and it appears to directly indicate that Trump was showing off materials that he acknowledged still had some level of their prior government protection. He also seemed to acknowledge that he took no action while president to comprehensively declassify the documents eventually recovered from him, undercutting his own later defense. Current excuses from Trump and Republican allies of his for the recording have been bizarre, ranging to the more recent comment from Donald that the “plans” he referenced were merely building plans, which… yeah, sure.
