New evidence in the form of text messages from a former aide to disgraced ex-president Donald Trump may be exactly what Special Counsel Jack Smith needs to prove that the twice-impeached former president did indeed actively engage in obstruction of justice by moving classified documents in order to hide them from FBI agents who searched his Mar-a-Lago resort in August of last year.
According to The Washington Post:
Justice Department and FBI investigators have amassed fresh evidence pointing to possible obstruction by former president Donald Trump in the investigation into top-secret documents found at his Mar-a-Lago home, according to people familiar with the matter.
The additional evidence comes as investigators have used emails and text messages from a former Trump aide to help understand key moments last year, said the people, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing criminal investigation.
The new details highlight the degree to which special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the potential mishandling of hundreds of classified national security papers at Trump’s Florida home and private club has come to focus on the obstruction elements of the case —whether the former president took or directed actions to impede government efforts to collect all the sensitive records.
Federal investigators, using “witness statements, security camera footage, and other documentary evidence,” believe that boxes which contained classified materials were moved from a storage area at Mar-a-Lago after a subpoena was served and that Trump “personally examined” some of the boxes in question.
“While Trump’s team returned some documents with classified markings in response to the subpoena, a later FBI search found more than 100 additional classified items that had not been turned over,” The Post adds.
These latest details come from court documents requesting a search of Mar-a-Lago for the purpose of proving that “evidence of obstruction will be found at the premises.”
The statute cited in the documents is 18 USC 1519, which makes it a felony to alter, destroy, mutilate or conceal a document “with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency.”
Trump will be in Manhattan next Tuesday to be fingerprinted and photographed in connection with crimes he allegedly committed when he paid off adult film actress Stormy Daniels to conceal an affair he had with her so it wouldn’t become public during his 2016 run for the White House.
The failed, one-term former president could also face felony charges in the state of Georgia for allegedly attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
