Donald Trump is going to have trouble sleeping tonight, especially since the Justice Department has just made it clear that there are numerous people at Mar-a-Lago who turned him over to the DOJ for hoarding classified documents.
The heavily redacted affidavit used to justify a search warrant of Trump’s Palm Beach resort reveals that prosecutors are worried witnesses could face threats or other harm in order to obstruct the ongoing investigation.
Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance focused in on the mention of multiple witnesses during an appearance on MSNBC:
“One very interesting tidbit we get from the legal memo that DOJ submitted to unseal the redacted version of the affidavit is what I think is the first effort to quantify the number of cooperating witnesses that DOJ had when they obtained this search warrant. They’re talking about the need to protect their witnesses from any sort of potential harm, and they say that there are a significant number of civilian witnesses. So we don’t know — is that five? Is that 10?”
Vance continued:
“But I think it’s important to realize here that DOJ was not just relying on one or two witnesses. Likely this is, as they say, a significant number of civilian witnesses as well as people in law enforcement who need to be protected as this investigation moves forward, and that puts into context what we’re looking at here.”
Additionally, Vance noted the unprecedented nature of what the country currently finds itself in the middle of:
“We’re talking about a former president of the United States who’s clearly taken with him when he left office materials, whether they’re classified or not, that could do grave damage to our national security if they’re disclosed in an inappropriate fashion, and not only is that former president resistant to returning those documents, also DOJ has legitimate reasons to believe that there are risk to witnesses who are helping complete this investigation. That should be a sobering moment for us to realize we’re in this situation with former President Trump.”
