The Justice Department now believes that failed, one-term former president Donald Trump was up to “something nefarious” by keeping classified and top-secret documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Washington Post reporter Amber Phillips noted on MSNBC Friday that new court filings prove the DOJ has a very important motive for getting the documents back into federal custody:
“Step back and try to think about this because there is a lot going on, and it’s all heating up right now. I think we’re right to be talking about this Mar-A-Lago raid a lot, and that’s because the FBI agents had to go out there and spell out examples of crimes they think Trump or his allies committed in Trump’s residence, and a judge agreed that there is possible cause. I mean, it’s right there. This is pretty serious.”
But it was what Phillips said next that’s most terrifying and worth keeping an eye on in the weeks ahead:
“Now the question that I have and legal experts have that I talk to have said is, did the FBI just want the documents badly enough to go in there and get them and then they’re done, or do they think there was some kind of misuse, and yesterday’s hearing, I thought, in court, reading a little bit of the tea leaves underscored that the FBI and the Justice Department are concerned that something nefarious was going on. There is still an ongoing case, we’ll mess up our prosecution if we keep this going. That is the No. 1 case to follow, and after that there is another Justice Department investigation into Jan. 6 that has hundreds of defendants, and they’re looking into President Trump’s words and actions regarding the Electoral College votes, and we could talk more about that in a minute. But it is a big one.”
