Trump Mar-a-Lago workers moved the boxes days before the FBI came for the documents

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Two of Donald Trumps employees moved boxes of paper a day before an early June visit by FBI agents and a prosecutor to the former presidents Florida home to retrieve classified documents in response to a timing of the subpoena that investigators viewed as suspicious and an indication of possible obstruction, according to people familiar with the matter.

Trump and his aides also allegedly held a dress rehearsal for moving sensitive papers even before his office received the subpoena in May 2022, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive ongoing investigation.

In addition, prosecutors gathered evidence indicating that Trump sometimes kept classified documents in his office in an area where they were visible and sometimes showed them to others, the sources said. this year.

Taken together, the new details of the classified-document investigation suggest a greater scope and specificity of instances of possible obstruction found by the FBI and Justice Department than previously reported. It also expands the timeline of possible obstruction episodes that investigators are examining to span from the events at Mar-a-Lago before the subpoena to the period after the FBI’s Aug. 8 search there.

Presidents and vice presidents regularly deal with classified documents, but strict guidelines from various laws have clear guidelines on the subject. (Video: Adriana Usero/The Washington Post)

That timeline could prove crucial as prosecutors try to determine Trump’s intent in keeping hundreds of classified documents after he left the White House, a key factor in deciding whether to file charges, possibly for interception, mishandling of national security secrets or both. The Washington Post previously reported that the boxes were moved from the storage area after Trumps office received a subpoena. But the precise timing of that activity is a key element in the investigation, people familiar with the matter said.

Grand jury activity in the case has slowed in recent weeks, and Trumps lawyers have taken steps including outlining his potential defense to members of Congress and seeking a meeting with the attorney general who suggests that he believes them that a charging decision is imminent. The grand jury working on the investigation apparently hasn’t met since May 5, after months of frenetic activity at the federal courthouse in Washington. It was the panels’ longest break since December, shortly after Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith as special counsel to lead the investigation and coincided with the year-end holidays.

Trump has denied wrongdoing in each case. This is nothing more than a targeted, politically motivated witch hunt against President Trump designed to interfere in an election and prevent the American people from returning him to the White House, Steven Cheung, a Trump spokesman, wrote in a statement. Like all the other fake hoaxes thrown at President Trump, this corrupt effort will fail.

Cheung accused prosecutors of showing no respect for common decency or the basic rules governing the legal system, and said investigators harassed anyone and everyone who worked. [for]has worked [for]or support Donald Trump.

In the course of negotiations to return the documents, President Trump told the chief DOJ official, anything you need from us, just let us know, he continued. The DOJ rejecting this offer of cooperation and conducting a raid on Mar-a-Lago proves that the Biden regime has armed the DOJ and FBI.

A spokesman for Smith declined to comment. Justice Department officials previously said they conducted the search only after months of unsuccessful efforts to retrieve all classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

Of particular importance to investigators in the classified-documents case, according to people familiar with the probe, is evidence showing that boxes of documents were moved to a storage area on June 2, before senior Justice Department officials arrived. attorney Jay Bratt at Mar-a-Lago with agents. The June 3 visit by law enforcement officials was to collect material in response to a May 2022 grand jury subpoena requesting the return of all documents with classified markings.

John Irving, an attorney representing one of the two employees who moved the boxes, said the worker did not know what was inside and was only trying to help Trump valet Walt Nauta, who was using a dolly or hand truck. to move some boxes.

He was seen on Mar-a-Lago security video helping Walt Nauta move boxes into a storage area on June 2, 2022. My client saw Mr. Nauta moved the boxes and volunteered to help him, Irving said. The next day, he added, the employee helped Nauta pack the SUV when former president Trump left for Bedminster for the summer.

The attorney said his client, a longtime Mar-a-Lago employee whom he declined to identify, has cooperated with the government and had no reason to think helping move the boxes was essential. Another person familiar with the investigation confirmed the employees’ role and said he had been questioned several times by authorities.

Irving is representing several witnesses in the investigation, and his law firm is being paid by Trumps Save America PAC, disclosure reports show. An attorney for Nauta, Stanley Brand, declined to comment.

Investigators sought to gather any evidence indicating that Trump or people close to him intentionally withheld any classified papers from the government.

On the evening of June 2, the same day the two employees moved the boxes, a lawyer for Trump contacted the Justice Department and said officials there were welcome to visit Mar-a-Lago and pick up the boxes. classified document related to the subpoena. Bratt and the FBI agents arrived the next day.

Trumps attorneys provided officials with a sealed envelope containing 38 classified documents and a signed certification that a diligent search had been conducted for the documents sought by the subpoena and that all relevant documents had been returned. .

As part of that visit, Bratt and the agents were invited to visit the storage room where Trump aides say boxes of documents from his time as president are kept. Court papers filed by the Justice Department said the visitors were told by Trump’s lawyers that they could not open any of the boxes in the storage room or view their contents.

When FBI agents obtained a court order to search Mar-a-Lago two months later, they found more than 100 additional documents, some in the Trumps’ office and some in a storage area.

In an August court filing explaining the search, prosecutors wrote that they had produced evidence that obstructive behavior occurred in connection with responding to the subpoena, including that documents were likely hidden and removed from the Storage Room. .

Prosecutors also obtained evidence that even before Trump’s office received the subpoena in May, he had what some officials called a dress rehearsal for turning over government documents he didn’t want to release, people familiar with the matter said. investigation.

The term dress rehearsal was used in a sealed judicial opinion issued earlier this year in one of several legal battles over governments’ access to specific witnesses and evidence, some of the people said. It was used to describe an episode when Trump allegedly reviewed the contents of some, but not all, boxes containing classified material, these people said. The New York Times first reported that Trumps team held what appeared to be a dress rehearsal before the subpoena arrived.

At the time, Trump and his legal team contacted the National Archives and Records Administration about whether he had seized White House records and property that should remain with the government. The dispute over presidential records led to the discovery of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, some of which were highly sensitive, including information about a foreign country’s nuclear capabilities; Iran’s missile system; and intelligence gathering aimed at China.

The former president, people familiar with the situation said, told aides he wanted to make sure he could hide the papers he considered his property.

Trump and the Mar-a-Lago documents: A timeline

That dress rehearsal episode is one of the few times where investigators see a possible ulterior motive in the actions of Trump and those around him. Lawyers for Trump and some of those witnesses, however, have argued in recent months that prosecutors view the sequence of events with extreme suspicion. They said that Smith’s team unfairly rejected the claims that the people were not trying to hide anything from the government but were just doing what they considered routine and innocent tasks of serving their master.

Prosecutors separately were told by more than one witness that Trump sometimes kept classified documents open in his Florida office, where others could see them, people familiar with the matter said, and if sometimes they are shown to people, including servants and visitors. .

Depending on the strength of that evidence, such accounts could significantly undercut claims by Trump or his lawyers that he didn’t know he had classified material.

People familiar with the situation said Smith’s team has completed most of its investigative work on the documents case and believes it has uncovered several distinct episodes of obstructionist behavior.

One of the suspected instances of interception, the people said, occurred after an FBI search on Aug. 8. They did not provide further details, but the Guardian previously reported that in December, lawyers for Trump found a box of White House schedules, including some marked classified, at Mar-a-Lago. On that occasion, a junior aide apparently moved the box from a government-leased office in nearby West Palm Beach.

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