BREAKING NEWS: FBI RAIDS TRUMP RESIDENCE IN MAR-A-LAGO FOR CLASSIFIED NUCLEAR DOCUMENTS, AMONG OTHERS

[Ralin]

The rest of the 'pile', so to speak. If he's going down, take everyone else but his kids down with him.

You think Trump gives a shit about his kids?!!

[Solauren]

The rest of the 'pile', so to speak. If he's going down, take everyone else but his kids down with him.

You think Trump gives a shit about his kids?!!

As people? Probably not.

As his legacy? The people that can carry forth the 'Trump brand', and the like? Absolutely.
He's the type that wants his influence to continue on past his death.
How do you do that? Kids

[Ralin]

As his legacy? The people that can carry forth the 'Trump brand', and the like? Absolutely.
He's the type that wants his influence to continue on past his death.
How do you do that? Kids

Who needs kids when you have a fanatical neo-fascist movement as your legacy?

[Batman]

And I doubt Trump is capable of thinking in terms 'of legacies'. The man doesn't give a flying fuck about anything -or -body but himself.

[Ralin]

Wong posted this on Facebook: https://news.yahoo.com/michael-cohen-sa ... 58806.html

Now, I'm skeptical that there's a 'sexy' explanation for this other than Trump's ongoing being a dumb shit about ignoring record-keeping laws and the like. But this guy was Trump's personal attorney. He presumably knows and understands the guy better than most people.

[Batman]

Wouldn't surprise me. The guy is completely ignorant about essentially EVERYTHING real-world.

[Solauren]

So, he's afraid of going to jail over something that happened during his presidency (probably the Jan 6 Riots/Insurrection), so he relocates high level documents to use as a bargaining chip?

We need to isolate him from the rest of humanity, before his stupidity level gets so high, it collapses into a black hole and destroys us all.

[bilateralrope]

Wong posted this on Facebook: https://news.yahoo.com/michael-cohen-sa ... 58806.html

Now, I'm skeptical that there's a 'sexy' explanation for this other than Trump's ongoing being a dumb shit about ignoring record-keeping laws and the like. But this guy was Trump's personal attorney. He presumably knows and understands the guy better than most people.

Trump has loans worth a total $900 million due in the next few years. So I've seen people speculate that Trump was planning to sell the documents he took.

[Khaat]

I'd be more inclined to see him looking to capitalize on the documents, rather than "Oh-ho! But I have top secret documents! You CAN'T arrest me for January 6th!" "That isn't how it works, but thank you for confessing to espionage and possession of classified documents charges."

Of course, with the early August golf tournament(/auction?) at Mar a Lago with Saudi guests, he may have already started capitalizing.
I'm willing to bet that the efforts to deliver nuclear secrets to SA by Flynn and others during DJT's administration culminated with Jared handing something over for $2 billion.

[bilateralrope]

Trump's legal team asks for 'special master' to go through Mar-a-Lago evidence and determine if some should be returned

By Katelyn Polantz, Kaitlan Collins and Tierney Sneed, CNN

Updated 0225 GMT (1025 HKT) August 23, 2022
DALLAS, TEXAS - AUGUST 06: Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Hilton Anatole on August 06, 2022 in Dallas, Texas. CPAC began in 1974, and is a conference that brings together and hosts conservative organizations, activists, and world leaders in discussing current events and future political agendas. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)


(CNN)Former President Donald Trump's legal team has asked a federal judge to appoint a "special master" to ensure the Justice Department returns any of his private documents seized during the search of Mar-a-Lago two weeks ago.

Trump is asking for a special master -- a third-party attorney -- to oversee the review of evidence gathered from the beach club in the criminal probe, and for the judge to pause federal investigators' work related to the evidence until the review is done, according to a new court filing.

he new lawsuit marks the first legal filing by Trump's team after FBI agents carried out their search on August 8 and underscores how his legal team has struggled to coalesce around a singular strategy. It has been assigned to Judge Aileen Cannon, who was nominated to the bench by Trump in 2020.
In the suit, Trump argues his constitutional rights were violated and that there may have been privileged materials seized.
Though the legal maneuver could slow down the Justice Department's ongoing criminal investigation, Trump's request to the federal court in South Florida could face an uphill legal battle after his team missed multiple opportunities to challenge the search.
"The Aug. 8 search warrant at Mar-a-Lago was authorized by a federal court upon the required finding of probable cause. The Department is aware of this evening's motion. The United States will file its response in court," Justice Department spokesman Anthony Coley said in response to the new filing.
The ex-President's lawyers declined to take a position in court in the immediate aftermath of the search warrant execution. They also did not weigh in on whether the search warrant affidavit should be made public before or during a court hearing last week in West Palm Beach, Florida, even though one of his attorneys was present.
Trump, in the new filing, also asks for a more detailed receipt of what was removed from Mar-a-Lago. That request, if granted, would add to the two receipts the FBI already provided to Trump's team describing 33 items seized, and which his attorney signed off on at the end of the search.
The Justice Department removed 11 sets of classified documents from Trump's home, according to documents unsealed by a judge last week. The inventory shows that some of the materials recovered were marked as "top secret/SCI," which is one of the highest levels of classification.

The department has already signaled that it is using an internal filter team to review the seized items, to separate material that could be subject to privilege claims. For instance, investigators mentioned the work of a filter team when they returned to Trump private documents that wouldn't be part of the investigation, such as two expired passports and his diplomatic passport.
The Justice Department, in court documents, said it believed the evidence it collected at Mar-a-Lago will support its criminal investigation into the mishandling of federal records, including national defense material, after Trump's team took boxes of records to Florida when he left office. The investigation is also looking at potential obstruction of justice in the investigation.
The Justice Department has said it has concerns that further information becoming public or known by Trump's team could prompt witness or document tampering. And, according to CNN and New York Times reports, a lawyer for Trump told investigators in writing that no classified records were left at Mar-a-Lago after June. The FBI said in an inventory list at the end of its search that there were additional classified documents retrieved.
A federal magistrate judge in the Southern District of Florida examined the DOJ's reasons for the search earlier this month and approved it. The judge is now weighing whether to make more details about the investigation public.
The three attorneys who signed the motion are Lindsey Halligan, Jim Trusty and Evan Corcoran. The filing included a line about politics not affecting the administration of justice.

Trump's team gives his version of the Mar-a-Lago search

In the filing, Trump's attorneys put forward the former President's narrative for how the search went down, the events leading up to it and the fallout from it.
The lawsuit also recounted a message for Attorney General Merrick Garland that Trump's lawyers gave to a top Justice Department official over the phone on August 11, a few days after the search.
"President Trump wants the Attorney General to know that he has been hearing from People all over the country about the raid," Trump's message said, according to the lawsuit. "If there was one word to describe their mood, it is 'angry.' The heat is building up. The pressure is building up. Whatever I can do to take the heat down, to bring the pressure down, just let us know."
The filing states that at 9:10 a.m. ET on the day of the search, that same top Justice Department official -- Jay Bratt, the head of the counterintelligence section in the Department of Justice's national security division -- telephoned Trump's lawyers to tell them a search warrant was being executed at Mar-a-Lago.
"Heated discussion ensued as to why the Government did not make a voluntary request to further explore the premises, given the expansive assistance that President Trump had provided to that point," the lawsuit said.
In Trump's telling, the search took nine hours and involved two dozen FBI agents.
The lawsuit recounted a request from Bratt that Mar-a-Lago's surveillance cameras be turned off -- a request that the filing said was declined. Bratt also asked for the names of the Trump attorneys who may have been arriving at the search. The new lawsuit claims that Bratt rebuffed a request from Trump's team that they be provided the affidavit.
"Among other actions taken after being notified of this unprecedented event, counsel for President Trump contacted three attorneys in the general area who agreed to go to Mar-a-Lago," the lawsuit said. "Once they arrived, they requested the ability to enter the mansion in order to observe what the FBl agents were doing, which the Government declined to permit."

June meeting between Trump and feds detailed

Trump's legal team also describes, for the first time, their version of what happened in the criminal records investigation prior to the search -- giving much agency to Trump himself.
At a June 3 meeting in which investigators visited Mar-a-Lago, Trump's team states "President Trump greeted them in the dining room," then left the agents with the parting words, "Whatever you need, just let us know."
The investigators then inspected a storage room, which Trump authorized his lawyer to do, the filing says.
Five days later, when the Justice Department wrote a letter asking for the storage room to be secured, "President Trump directed his staff to place a second lock on the door to the storage room, and one was added," his team writes.
Trump's lawyers also say the former President directed the acceptance of a Justice Department subpoena in late June that sought footage from Mar-a-Lago surveillance cameras. This is the first time those investigative steps have been described in public in court.
The New York Times, citing people familiar with the matter, reported Monday that investigators have sought additional surveillance footage from Mar-a-Lago even after the search.
Trump's disclosures could come into play as a federal magistrate judge considers transparency in the case. A lawyer for media organizations seeking access to the search warrant's affidavit argued last week that the Justice Department's version of events that Trump's team has described publicly should be unsealed.
The Justice Department has said it is investigating attempts to obstruct justice as part of the probe, and CNN and other outlets have reported a lawyer for Trump represented no more classified material existed at Mar-a-Lago, before the FBI search found several sets of documents marked as classified.
In addition to asking for a special master to be appointed, Trump and his lawyers used their lawsuit as a vehicle to re-air some of his years-old grievances about the FBI's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The suit blasted "biased FBI agents" and criticized key Russia probe figures -- including Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Christopher Steele and Bruce Ohr, who all played a role in the early FBI investigation into the web of connections between Trump's 2016 campaign and the Kremlin.
Trump brought this up in the suit as part of his argument that the Justice Department and FBI are biased against him and that the Mar-a-Lago search was meant to derail his political career.
This story has been updated with additional reporting.

I'm hoping that part of the DOJ's response here is to say that, because Trump's lawyers waited two weeks before filing this, they have already gone through most/all of the documents. Making it too late for a special master to be able to stop their filter team from seeing anything.

Oh and that's not the only mistake Trump's team made in their filing:
Judge gives Trump until Friday to better explain why he wants a special master for Mar-a-Lago documents

By Katelyn Polantz and Tierney Sneed, CNN

Updated 0419 GMT (1219 HKT) August 24, 2022

(CNN)A federal judge in Florida has given former President Donald Trump until Friday to refine the legal arguments in his request for a special master to oversee the review of evidence gathered in the Mar-a-Lago search.

District Court Judge Aileen Cannon in the Southern District of Florida ordered Trump's lawyers to elaborate on their arguments for why the court has the ability to step in at this time, explain what exactly Trump is asking for and whether the Justice Department has been served with Trump's special master motion.
Cannon also asked Trump's team to weigh in on any effect the request might have on a separate review conducted by a magistrate judge into whether any portions of the still-sealed FBI affidavit laying out probable cause for the search can be released.
The judge's order showcases many of the ways that the complaint filed by Trump fell short of what would have been expected of a court submission asking for the appointment of a special master-- particularly in a search as high-stakes as the one FBI executed at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month
"What's she saying is, 'What are you doing in front of me?'" Mark Schnapp, a criminal defense lawyer in Florida who spent seven years working for the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida, told CNN.
Generally speaking, it is not outside the legal norm for Trump to want a special master involved in the review of the evidence seized from his Florida residence. His former lawyer, Michael Cohen successfully sought the appointment of a special master when Cohen's office and residences were searched by the FBI in 2018.
But Trump waited two weeks to make such a request, raising eyebrows because of how far along in the process the Justice Department likely is in reviewing what it seized at Mar-a-Lago. (For the review, the Justice Department is using what's known as "taint team," which is a group of prosecutors not working on the probe in question who filter out materials that should not be handed over to investigators.)
And when Trump did file his request with the court, the complaint leaned heavily into political accusations, while being light on the sort of legal discussion that would explain to a court why it should intervene and what authority it had to do so. When Trump's lawyers did cite the court rules they said gave the judge the authority to grant the request, they cited the rules of civil procedure, without any explanation for why those rules should be applied in a context concerning a criminal search warrant.
Trump also did not file with the complaint the kind of separate request -- such as a motion for a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction -- that would have sped up the timeline for the judge to consider what Trump was asking for.
Nor did Trump's legal team file any declarations -- i.e. statements from the lawyers who were said to have interacted with the Justice Department in the lead-up and after the search -- to back up the complaint's factual assertions.
Instead, the complaint retread allegations about the FBI's investigation into Russia's 2016 election interference, while sensationally suggesting that the DOJ's actions were motivated by a desire to hinder a Trump 2024 presidential run. It also included the full text of a warning Trump supposedly sought to deliver through his lawyers to Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Schnapp said Trump's filing Monday read more like a political message than a legal document.
"They really didn't ask for anything. That's the craziness," Schnapp said. "They didn't ask for anything to be done in the immediate future to slow it down, even though that's what they claimed to be doing"
Trump's move to file a separate case that was assigned to Judge Cannon, rather than file the request with the magistrate judge who signed off on the warrant, also prompted confusion among outside legal experts. It appears that Trump's lawyers even ran into procedural issues with the filing of the lawsuit and with their attempts to enter appearances in the case.
The clerk posted one notice on the docket indicating that the complaint had been "filed conventionally" when it "should have been filed electronically," according to the court's local rules.
Another notice from the clerk indicated that the Trump attorneys who were seeking special admission to enter appearances in the case because they were not barred in Florida also failed to follow the local rules in doing so. They were given another chance to enter their appearances correctly.

[LadyTevar]

Well...

Sounds like he's not expecting that to go anywhere, but filed it for looks?

Or is the new team of lawyers just that incompetent? They're "not barred" in Florida, so I'm assuming that means they need to be recognized as able to practice law in FL? If they're not Florida Lawyers, where'd Trump dig them up?

[Tribble]

Well...

Sounds like he's not expecting that to go anywhere, but filed it for looks?

Or is the new team of lawyers just that incompetent? They're "not barred" in Florida, so I'm assuming that means they need to be recognized as able to practice law in FL? If they're not Florida Lawyers, where'd Trump dig them up?

If there is one thing about Trump, it’s that he sincerely believes that the constitution and laws do not apply to him. Those are for lessor mortals and losers, not geniuses worthy of being on Mt Rushmore like him. That, and everyone in the country must swear fealty to him and be absolutely loyal at all times.

IMO Trump truly believes that all he had to do was state that he was being persecuted and the Judge would immediately obey, dismiss everything and hand the documents back. On account of him being Trump, Lord and Saviour of America. He must be astounded (and enraged) that the Courts and Law enforcement do not seem to agree with that assessment.

Of course, if it was lessor mortals and losers like Clinton and Biden that’s a totally different story.

[Ralin]

If there is one thing about Trump, it’s that he sincerely believes that the constitution and laws do not apply to him. Those are for lessor mortals and losers, not geniuses worthy of being on Mt Rushmore like him. That, and everyone in the country must swear fealty to him and be absolutely loyal at all times.

IMO Trump truly believes that all he had to do was state that he was being persecuted and the Judge would immediately obey, dismiss everything and hand the documents back. On account of him being Trump, Lord and Saviour of America. He must be astounded (and enraged) that the Courts and Law enforcement do not seem to agree with that assessment.

A judge he nominated, no less.

[Solauren]

His thought process is probably 'I appointed him, there for he works for ME'.

[Khaat]

Hate to point out the obvious, but this is just the smoke and mirrors to justify mob retaliation by the cult: "See! We followed 'the rules' and we were still abused! Get your torches, pitchforks, and AR-15s!"

[Tribble]

Hate to point out the obvious, but this is just the smoke and mirrors to justify mob retaliation by the cult: "See! We followed 'the rules' and we were still abused! Get your torches, pitchforks, and AR-15s!"

Well ya, it’s clear that a good chunk of Republicans want a violent overthrow of Democrat governments and are just looking for excuses.

Trump also wants an overthrow of government to establish himself as dictator… but so far he hasn’t been quite able to fully commit to the cause. Just in case he loses, I suppose.

Which has been fortunate for everyone else so far. IMO had Trump marched with the rioters in 2021 and as President publicly ordered the immediate arrest of all Democrats (+ perhaps Pence) he might very well have won. Or at least caused a much worse crisis than it was already.

A lesson I’m sure Republicans have learned for next time.

[LadyTevar]

A lesson I’m sure Republicans have learned for next time.

Oh yes. Next time there will be GOP Senators marching with the rioters.

Because I somehow doubt the GOP have learned the Right Lesson here.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Why would Trump have ordered the arrest of his own VP though?

[bilateralrope]

Why would Trump have ordered the arrest of his own VP though?

Because Pence didn't follow through with the plan of refusing to certify the results.

[GrosseAdmiralFox]

Well, this will be interesting in the 'how much black ink is on the paper' sense...

... though the usual idiots are infesting the comments.

[bilateralrope]

Inside Trump's public bravado and private resistance over Mar-a-Lago documents

By Gabby Orr, Kristen Holmes, Evan Perez and Jeremy Herb, CNN

Updated 2312 GMT (0712 HKT) August 25, 2022

Washington (CNN)Not long after the National Archives acknowledged in February that it had retrieved 15 boxes of presidential records from former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, Trump began fielding calls from Tom Fitton, a prominent conservative activist.

Fitton, the longtime head of the legal activist group Judicial Watch, had a simple message for Trump — it was a mistake to give the records to the Archives, and his team should never have let the Archives "strong-arm" him into returning them, according to three sources familiar with the matter.
Those records belonged to Trump, Fitton argued, citing a 2012 court case involving his organization that he said gave the former President authority to do what he wanted with records from his own term in office.
The Judicial Watch president suggested to Trump that if the Archives came back, he should not give up any additional records, according to sources with knowledge of their conversations, which have not been previously reported.
While Trump continued to publicly tout his cooperation with the Archives, privately the former President began obsessing over Fitton's arguments, complaining to aides about the 15 boxes that were handed over and becoming increasingly convinced that he should have full control over records that remained at Mar-a-Lago, according to people with knowledge of his behavior at the time.
Trump even asked Fitton at one point to brief his attorneys, said a person familiar with the matter.
"The moment Tom got in the boss' ear, it was downhill from there," said a person close to the former President, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.
In a phone interview with CNN, Fitton would neither confirm nor deny conversations he's had with Trump, but noted that he has been vocal on social media and television that Trump had the right to keep the documents he took with him at the end of his presidency because they inherently were personal.
Trump's interactions with Fitton shed new light on his evolving— and often conflicting— posture toward the Archives dating back to before he even left office and his recent reluctance to hand over more documents after initially giving up the 15 boxes in January. While he was in contact with Fitton behind the scenes, Trump continued to claim publicly that he was cooperating with government officials.
Trump didn't completely stonewall the government as Fitton had advised, turning over some material in June following a meeting between his lawyers and federal investigators at Mar-a-Lago. But after a Trump lawyer claimed all classified material had been provided, investigators developed evidence suggesting that was not the case, leading to the August 8 search.
A similar dissonance has emerged between Trump's private and public response to the FBI's search of his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Publicly, Trump and his allies have celebrated the surge in enthusiasm and fundraising among Republicans — with the former President painting himself as a victim of the "deep state." Some in Trump's orbit have even gone so far as to indicate that a potential indictment would give Trump a political boost as he mulls another presidential run.
But privately, the former President and his allies have become increasingly concerned. One source close to the former President told CNN that Trump has posed questions about a potential indictment to members of his inner circle. Another adviser acknowledged that while Trump has certainly been in legal peril before, including while he was president, this seems different and potentially more dangerous, particularly because the former President no longer has the legal protections afforded to the executive office.
A spokesperson for Trump did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The actions of Trump's legal team since the FBI's search -- including a legal filing seeking a "special master" that a judge found problematic and told the team to clarify by Friday -- have only fueled questions about Trump's strategy as his legal woes have multiplied.
Trump's team seems to be primarily concerned with the public relations fight -- and Trump's political prospects. While Trump has publicly called for the release of the affidavit justifying the search of his residence, his lawyers have yet to take any legal action to seek its disclosure.
Meanwhile, Fitton's conservative Judicial Watch, which frequently uses litigation to try to pry loose government activity and records, has filed to unseal the affidavit. So has CNN, along with other news outlets, including The Washington Post, NBC News, and Scripps.

FedExing Kim Jong Un's letters

When federal agents arrived at Trump's oceanfront estate on August 8, more than a year had passed since Archives officials first began asking representatives of the former President to return various materials that were removed from the White House and taken to Mar-a-Lago.
Among them had been Trump's correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
At one point during the protracted negotiations, a senior Archives official instructed Scott Gast, a former lawyer in Trump's White House counsel's office who had been appointed to coordinate with the National Archives, to send the letters using FedEx's overnight service.
"Please let me know before you mail it and then pass along the tracking code once it has been sent. I need to make sure I have staff on this end to receive the package," the official wrote to Gast and others in a June 2021 email obtained by CNN.
In the end, it took seven months for the Archives to finally receive the Kim letters. They were contained in the 15 boxes that Trump aides allowed Archives officials to arrange for pick up from Mar-a-Lago earlier this year, which contained 700 pages of classified documents, according to the Archives.
Sources close to the former President said his willingness to cooperate with Archives and, eventually, federal investigators broke down further once Fitton became a familiar voice inside his orbit.
Fitton told Trump that he had case law on his side due to Fitton's own failed effort a decade ago to gain access to certain records from former President Bill Clinton's time in office. In 2012, Judicial Watch sued to require the Archives to designate as presidential records audio recordings then-President Clinton made with a historian named Taylor Branch. Doing so would make them subject to Freedom of Information Act requests.
The suit was eventually dismissed by a judge, who wrote that NARA "does not have the authority to designate materials as 'presidential records'" and "lacks any right, duty or means to seize control of them."
Even though the Clinton case did not involve classified records, Fitton, nevertheless, believes his case proves Trump has the right to keep his records.
"I have been quite clear that President Trump is being abused here and the Justice Department has changed its position that they had in the Clinton case," Fitton told CNN. After the 15 boxes were returned, "I noted at the time that it was at odds with the position of the Justice Department in the Clinton-Taylor Branch case."

Legal concerns

Even people close to the former President have begun to privately question the competence of the legal team around him, particularly Christina Bobb, the former One America News Network TV host who has become one of the faces of Trump's legal team in the aftermath of the Mar-a-Lago search.
In her recent appearances across conservative media, Bobb has propagated a litany of conspiracy theories about the Mar-a-Lago search, including the baseless allegation that the FBI planted evidence while on Trump's property.
Bobb previously assisted Rudy Giuliani's behind-the-scenes efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. She signed the warrant receipts after the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago.
Bobb did not respond to a request for comment.
Last week, Fox News host Laura Ingraham, who has been a vocal supporter of Trump on her program, pushed back on Bobb over the decision by Trump's legal team not to file or join any motions related to the release of the federal affidavit filed to justify the search warrant.
"Are you not concerned that because you didn't join any of these motions for the full release of this affidavit that you are then waiving possible objections to the way redactions are being done by the Justice Department later on?" Ingraham asked Bobb.
Bobb replied that the team was going to wait and see what happened with the unsealing of the affidavit.
It took two weeks before Trump's lawyers formally waded into the legal fight over the search warrant. And when they finally did on Monday, their motion had numerous legal flaws and drew criticism from legal experts on both sides of the aisle. The motion was filed in a separate case, putting it before a different judge than Florida Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, who approved the search warrant. That judge, District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, gave Trump's legal team until Friday to refine its legal arguments as part of its request for a "special master" — a third party attorney — to oversee the review of evidence obtained during the search.
While Trump's legal team has not filed any motions to unseal the affidavit, Trump and his legal team have argued publicly that it should be released.
On Thursday, Reinhart ruled that the Justice Department must release a redacted version of the affidavit by noon on Friday.
Another lawyer representing Trump, Alina Habba, suggested in a TV appearance Tuesday that the former President wants the DOJ to release the names of the witnesses who helped secure the search warrant for Mar-a-Lago, which would be contained in the affidavit and which government attorneys have argued could chill future witness cooperation.
"The president's position is the same as what I would advise him, which is to ask (the DOJ) to uncover everything so we can see what's going on. I understand the witness protection issue, but at the same time, these witnesses are truly not going to be concealed for very long," Habba said on conservative network Newsmax. "That's just not the nature of the DOJ and the FBI, and unfortunately in our country there's always leaks."
In addition to Bobb and Habba, Trump is being represented by Evan Corcoran, an attorney who has also represented former Trump aide Steven Bannon, and Florida-based attorney Lindsey Halligan, whose background is in insurance litigation. Trump has also retained Jim Trusty, a former assistant US attorney and Justice Department prosecutor, who is widely seen in his orbit as the most capable among his team.
As they've sought to undercut the federal probe, Trump's team and his allies have put forward additional theories that quickly wilted under scrutiny.
John Solomon, a conservative writer and one of Trump's designees to the Archives, read a statement from Trump's team claiming Trump had a "standing order" to declassify documents he took from the Oval Office to the White House residence -- something 18 former administration officials told CNN was patently untrue. Others have suggested the General Services Administration, a small government agency that helps with the presidential transition, was responsible for the documents that were sent to Mar-a-Lago.
The GSA said the responsibility for what is moved when a president leaves office rests entirely with the outgoing president and staff.

Trump wants political fight not a legal one

Trump's advisers have made it clear they want this fight to be a political not legal battle.
On Monday night, Solomon published a letter sent by the National Archives to Trump's legal team in May.
The letter stated clearly that the Archives had retrieved more than 100 classified documents totaling more than 700 pages, including some with the highest levels of classification.
"It shows that Donald Trump and his team knew...they were in possession of large amounts of highly classified information," said Elie Honig, a former Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of New York and a CNN legal analyst. "This letter makes clear [Trump's team] was delaying."
While many legal experts shared this sentiment and said the letter was damning to Trump, the former President seemed to believe the letter showcased a political win — claiming it proved that he was the victim of a "witch hunt." Trump has pointed to the letter's mention of the communications the Archives had with the Biden White House over privilege issues, after the White House counsel's office was consulted over granting the FBI access to the boxes the Archives took from Mar-a-Lago. That was unrelated to the search warrant, however.
Trump's allies in conservative media have picked up on the narrative and amplified it. "The letter revealed that Joe Biden empowered the National Archives to waive any claims to executive privilege Trump might assert to block the DOJ from gaining access to the documents," conservative personality Dan Bongino said on his program.
Trump and his allies, however, have conflated the executive privilege questions over the documents Trump had handed over to the Archives with the FBI's search warrant, which the Biden White House says it had no knowledge of.
The White House's counsel's office deferred the decision to the archivist, declining to weigh-in on whether the FBI should have been allowed to access the documents the Archives retrieved from Mar-a-Lago "given the political implications and optics," said Bradley Moss, a Washington-based national security lawyer.
"If anything, the Biden White House went out of its way to not get involved in whether or not this became a truly criminal matter," Moss said.
Some of Trump's allies believe the former President is more secure than ever, at least politically speaking. In the days following the FBI search, Trump raised millions of dollars and saw an outpouring of support -- including from his potential GOP rivals in a 2024 presidential primary.
"Republican voters are looking at this [search] and saying if they can do this to him, they can do this to anyone," one source close to Trump said. "It's exactly where we want them to be."

So Trump listened to someone saying "you can keep the documents you took", despite that person having no clue what was in those documents.

[Ralin]

Trump latching onto some specious bullshit that the last person he talked to managed to plant in his head and Trump picking a weirdass pointless fight because of a perceived challenge to his authori-tai are both much more in-character than him trying to blackmail the government with classified information/sell nuclear secrets to the Saudis, gotta say.

[LadyTevar]

Who the Hell is this Tom Fitton and WTF did he stick his nose in?

[Broomstick]

Why would Trump have ordered the arrest of his own VP though?

Trump punishes anyone who doesn't obey him and fulfill his desires. Pence defied Trump's wishes, so in Trump's mind Pence is a criminal and a traitor.

Absolutely Trump would have had Pence arrested on the spot if he had been there. And if the mob beat or hung Pence Trump would have done nothing to stop them, just stood by with a smirk on his face.

Trump is NOT a nice person. Don't ever forget that. ESPECIALLY when he is turning on the charm and charisma.

[Solauren]

Who the Hell is this Tom Fitton and WTF did he stick his nose in?

From Wikipedia about 'Judicial Watch'
Judicial Watch (JW) is an American conservative activist group that files Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits to investigate claimed misconduct by government officials. Founded in 1994, JW has primarily targeted Democrats, in particular the Presidency of Bill Clinton, the Presidency of Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton. It was founded by attorney Larry Klayman, and has been led by Tom Fitton since 2003.

The organization has described climate science as "fraud science" and has filed lawsuits against government climate scientists. JW has made numerous false and unsubstantiated claims that have been picked up by right-wing news outlets and promoted by conservative figures. Former U.S President Donald Trump has repeatedly cited false claims by Judicial Watch about voter fraud. Courts have dismissed the vast majority of its lawsuits.


About Tom Fitton
Thomas J. Fitton (born May 30, 1968) is an American conservative activist and the president of Judicial Watch. Fitton is known for pro-Trump commentary. Fitton is prominent for criticizing Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential election; he has said that the investigation was a "coup" against U.S. President Donald Trump and called for it to be shut down. In 2022, researchers found Fitton was the third-most prolific purveyor of election misinformation on Twitter during the late months of 2020.
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He also rejects climate change, and launches lawsuits against any claims about it.