Tag: Espionage

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Donald Trump Espionage Russia

Trump Wanted To Trade Mar-a-Lago Files For ‘Sensitive Documents’ About His Ties To Russia: Report

Disgraced, one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump told aides that he wanted to make a deal with the National Archives to return classified and top secret documents he stole from the White House and spirited away to his Mar-a-Lago resort in exchange for “sensitive” documents that he was convinced would prove his 2016 campaign did not conspire with Russia to guarantee he was elected.

According to Maggie Haberman and Michael Schmidt of The New York Times:

Mr. Trump, still determined to show he had been wronged by the F.B.I. investigation into his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia, was angry with the National Archives and Records Administration for its unwillingness to hand over a batch of sensitive documents that he thought proved his claims,” before adding, “In exchange for those documents, Mr. Trump told advisers, he would return to the National Archives the boxes of material he had taken to Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Fla.

Trump’s aides “never pursued” his harebrained plan, but the very mention of such a scheme “…demonstrates how Mr. Trump spent a year and a half deflecting, delaying and sometimes leading aides to dissemble when it came to demands from the National Archives and ultimately the Justice Department to return the material he had taken, interviews and documents show.”

In doing so, Trump may have opened members of his staff and even his attorneys up to charges of obstructing justice, if only because they didn’t immediately report his actions to federal authorities.

The Justice Department believes the failed ex-president still has classified materials in his possession, according to a separate report from The Times.

A top Justice Department official told former President Donald J. Trump’s lawyers in recent weeks that the department believed he had not returned all the documents he took when he left the White House, according to two people briefed on the matter.

The outreach from the official, Jay I. Bratt, who leads the department’s counterintelligence operations, is the most concrete indication yet that investigators remain skeptical that Mr. Trump has been fully cooperative in their efforts to recover documents the former president was supposed to have turned over to the National Archives at the end of his term.

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Crime Donald Trump Espionage Justice Department

Trump Attorney Ready To ‘Cooperate’ With Justice Department In Mar-a-Lago Case

 

A member of failed, one-term former president Donald Trump’s legal team has lawyered up and told the Justice Department she’s ready to “cooperate” with prosecutors investigating the ex-president for allegedly taking classified documents from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago resort in violation of federal law, according to The Washington Post.

Christina Bobb, has told other Trump allies that she is willing to be interviewed by the Justice Department about her role in responding to the subpoena, according to people familiar with the conversations. Another, M. Evan Corcoran, has been counseled by colleagues to hire a criminal defense lawyer because of his response to the subpoena, people familiar with those conversations said, but so far has insisted that is not necessary.

When asked if she had indeed agreed to assist the DOJ with the ongoing investigation, Bobb responded:

“I’m sorry, I’m not allowed to talk about it.”

Another attorney Trump recently hired, former Florida Solicitor General Christopher Kise, is trying to get the former president to find an “off ramp” to avoid facing criminal charges.

Kise told others he wanted to de-escalate the Trump team’s pugilistic approach to federal prosecutors, according to three people familiar with his comments.

Continuing to attack the Justice Department and the FBI, he argued, was likely to cause federal authorities to be more aggressive. Kise has suggested to other Trump advisers that the best solution would be to try to find an “off-ramp” with the Justice Department before a possible indictment or trial; he has said he thinks Trump can avoid criminal charges.

But if Bobb is ready to tell what she knows to the Justice Department, it seems unlikely that Kise’s rosy scenario of avoiding charges will come to pass.

Bobb also denies that she was ever actually defending Trump on the documents case, which is odd since she did a majority of the interviews in the weeks after the ex-president’s Palm Beach club was searched by FBI agents:

Despite giving numerous interviews in the days immediately after the FBI search in which she was identified as a lawyer for Trump, Bobb told a fellow RSBN anchor during a Sept. 23 broadcast that she was not acting as a Trump attorney while serving as custodian of the records in responding to the subpoena. The difference is important: The Justice Department team investigating the handling of the documents would face few hurdles to compel her to testify if she had not been serving as Trump’s lawyer at the time.

“I think people were a little bit confused,” Bobb told her fellow anchor. “I am on President Trump’s legal team. I do work for him on election issues. I was never on the legal team handling this case, just to be clear on that. Which is why I came in as the custodian of records — because I wasn’t on that team.”

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Crime Donald Trump Espionage WTF?!

Former FBI Official Believes He Has Proof Trump Moved Classified Documents To Another Location

A former top official with the FBI said Saturday that new photographic evidence seems to suggest disgraced former one-term president Donald Trump deliberately moved classified documents from his Mar-a-Lago resort to his Bedminster golf club just three days after the federal government contacted him about failing to return requested materials.

According to Mediaite:

On Saturday morning, Meidas Touch posted an intriguing video from last year, writing “Video from May 8, 2021 shows Trump boarding a jet from Florida to Bedminster with multiple boxes bearing a strong resemblance to boxes of top secret materials found at Mar-a-Lago. On May 6, NARA had contacted Trump’s team saying documents were missing and may be at Mar-a-Lago.”

That video was taken exactly three days after Trump had been notified he needed to return the documents he had in his possession:

May 6: National Archives and Records Administration contacts Trump’s team to say some high-profile presidential documents appear to be missing. “We know things are very chaotic, as they always are in the course of a one-term transition,” Gary Stern, the agency’s chief counsel writes to Trump lawyers. “But it is absolutely necessary that we obtain and account for all presidential records.”

The resurfaced video led Peter Strzok, a former FBI agent and official, to weigh in on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/petestrzok/status/1568569527113338882?s=20&t=9qVf5R3BWl2uQ-HlfO-ytQ

Then others shared their thoughts on the video and the timing of when those boxes were being moved.

Andrew Weissmann, who served as lead investigator for Special Counsel Robert Mueller during the Russiagate probe, noted:

To paraphrase a line from the classic 1975 film “Jaws,” You’re gonna need a bigger search warrant.

 

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Crime Donald Trump Espionage

$3 Million Attorney Trump Brought In For Mar-a-Lago Case Has Already Been ‘Sidelined’: Report

Less than a month after he was hired and given a $3 million retainer to lead the defense for failed, one-term former president Donald Trump in the Mar-a-Lago stolen classified documents case, attorney Christopher Kise has been “sidelined” according to CNN.

Kise is expected to remain on Trump’s legal team but is not leading the work related to the federal government’s investigation into how the former President handled 11,000 documents seized from his Florida home in August following a lengthy effort by the government to retrieve them. The reason for the shift in Kise’s role remains unclear and he may instead focus his efforts on the other investigations Trump is facing, which range from his business practices to the January 6 insurrection.

Unlike many of Trump’s other so-called lawyers, Kise is actually a respect trial attorney who once served as solicitor general for the state of Florida and is considered to be an excellent white-collar attorney.

Before he came aboard, other lawyers on Trump’s team were perceived in legal circles to have made serious missteps in the investigation, such as not fully recognizing the legal risk of the documents investigation before the search of Mar-a-Lago, telling investigators all classified records had been turned over, missing opportunities to argue for executive privilege and having an appeals court deliver a drubbing against Trump’s bid to block classified documents in the investigation.

What exactly happened? That’s hard to say since neither Trump or Kise would agree to speak on the record regarding Kise’s sudden demotion from lead counsel to bystander, but knowing the ex-president, it probably involves Kise suggesting a legal strategy and being rebuffed by the Donald, who doesn’t know the first thing about the law other than he doesn’t think it applies to him or his family.

Among the other attorneys Trump has employed for the Mar-a-Lago case are former One America New Network host Christina Bobb, Florida insurance lawyer Lindsey Halligan, and Alina Habba, who’s main qualification seems to be that she was attorney for a parking garage company.

But hey, by all means, put the real lawyer on the bench, Donnie.

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Donald Trump Espionage Fox News WTF?!

Trump Tells Hannity He Declassified Documents With His Mind: ‘By Thinking About It’

Disgraced, failed, one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump has a new excuse for why he violated the law by hoarding thousands of classified and top secret documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida: He telepathically declassified all of them with his mind, “by thinking about it.”

In an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity that aired Wednesday evening, Trump was asked:

“A president has the power to declassify. You have said on Truth Social a number of times you did declassify. Is there a process? What was your process?”

The ex-president replied:

“There doesn’t have to be a process as I understand it. If you’re the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying, ‘It’s declassified,’ even by thinking about it because you’re sending it to Mar-a-Lago or wherever you’re sending it. And there doesn’t have to be a process. There can be a process but there doesn’t have to be. You’re the president. You make that decision. So when you send it, it’s declassified. I declassified everything.”

That is complete and total bullshit, as former White House counsel for ethics Norm Eisen noted on CNN:

“There’s no indication that Trump actually ever declassified these documents. The reason [Trump’s] lawyers have never said in a court filing that the documents were declassified is because they would be subject to penalties themselves, ethics penalties, penalties of the court if they said something that isn’t true.”

And former Trump White House communications director Stephanie Grisham explained that there is indeed a process for declassifying the sort of materials Trump had in his possession:

“You don’t just say the words, ‘These are now declassified,’ and it’s done. There is a process. And more importantly, people, agencies would need to be told. The CIA, the DOJ, the FBI, the people who have sources and methods out there. They would need to know that, ‘Hey, these documents are suddenly declassified,’ so that they can move those sources around.”

Twitter users had some thoughts on the idea of using mental telepathy to change things from top secret to copacetic.