The latest Justice Department
motion in the case is focused less on the removal last year of classified information from the White House to Mar-a-Lago and more on the events of this past spring. That’s when law enforcement officials tried — unsuccessfully — to get all documents back and were assured, falsely, that everything had been accounted for after a “diligent search.”
The Justice Department issued a grand jury subpoena in May for the records, and officials visited Mar-a-Lago on June 3 to collect them. When they got there, Tuesday’s department document says, they were handed by a Trump lawyer a “single Redweld envelope, double-wrapped in tape” containing documents.
A custodian for the records presented a sworn certification to the officials saying that “any and all responsive documents” to the subpoena had been located and produced. A Trump lawyer said that all records that had come from the White House had been held in one location — a storage room — and that there were none in any private space or other spot at the house.
But the FBI came to doubt the truth of those statements and obtained a search warrant to return on Aug. 8.
Officials had “developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the Storage Room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation,” the new Justice Department filing says.
In their August search, agents found classified documents not only in the storage room but also in the former president’s office, including three classified documents in an office desk, according to the Justice Department. In some instances, the agents and attorneys conducting the review of seized documents required additional clearances since the material was so highly classified.
“That the FBI, in a matter of hours, recovered twice as many documents with classification markings as the ‘diligent search’ that the former president’s counsel and other representatives had weeks to perform calls into serious question the representations made in the June 3 certification and casts doubt on the extent of cooperation in this matter,” the document states.
trump is an egotistical ***** who doesn't believe laws apply to him. He, like a baby, wanted his records and didn't think he had to turn them in.