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Tracking The Criminal Donald Trump

Sensitive Classified Documents Files Found in TRUMP Bedroom After NEW FBI Search

A newly unsealed filing in Trumps’ Florida classified documents criminal case shows that there were more classified documents discovered at Mar-a-Lago even after the FBI last searched Trumps’ property in 2023, confirming a scoop from the Guardians’ Hugo Lowell.

The Guardian 23 MAY 2024






The Guardian 23 MAY 2024





David Harbach, center, a key prosecutor on special counsel Jack Smiths' team, walks out of the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. U.S. Courthouse in Miami







Defense attorneys representing former President Donald Trump, Todd Blanche, left, and Chris Kise, center, leave the Alto Lee Adams Sr. U.S. Courthouse after a pretrial conference to discuss procedures for handling classified information in the case against Trump


A lawyer for Donald Trumps’ personal valet took aim at the conduct of prosecutors in the classified documents case in a heated hearing Wednesday, the first since a judge indefinitely postponed the trial.





Walt Nauta has pleaded not guilty


Stanley Woodward, a lawyer for Walt Nauta, said prosecutors had targeted his client for prosecution after he refused to cooperate against Trump in the investigation. Nauta was charged alongside Trump last year in a federal case accusing them of conspiring to conceal boxes of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, Trumps estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

The defense lawyer also said a prosecutor in the case had warned him earlier in the investigation that he needed to be careful or he would “mess up” his bid for a Washington, D.C., judgeship, a comment Woodward interpreted as designed to get him to pressure Nauta to assist the inquiry.

But David Harbach, a prosecutor with Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s team, which brought the case, called Woodward’s allegations “garbage” and “fantasy.” He said the statements attributed to his colleague, Jay Bratt, had been taken out of context. Woodward said he would be willing to testify under oath about the exchange.

A judge has questioned how Donald Trump could have overlooked sensitive documents that turned up in his bedroom after the FBI searched the former US president’s Florida home.

The files were found in his private quarters months after federal agents discovered over 100 classified records as they executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach in the summer of 2022.

The judge also noted the prosecution’s belief that Mr Trump was “likely instructing his agents to avoid the surveillance cameras” at the golf club.

He denies 40 federal charges of unlawful retention of national defence information.

His co-defendants, aide Walt Nauta and former employee Carlos de Oliveira, have also pleaded not guilty.

The trial is unlikely to begin before November's US election, in which Mr Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee.

In the Trump case, a newly unsealed filing, external said the former president’s lawyers had turned over four additional documents with classification markings that were found in December 2022, four months after the FBI raid at the property.

US District Judge Beryl Howell wrote in the March 2023 opinion: “Notably, no excuse is provided as to how the former president could miss the classified-marked documents found in his own bedroom at Mar-a-Lago.”

After Mr Trump learned of this subpoena, prosecutors allege there was a “scramble" by Mr Nauta to change his travel plans and fly from New Jersey to Mar-a-Lago in 2022 to ensure boxes were moved “off-camera", according to the opinion unsealed on Tuesday.

The judge notes “the curious absence of any video footage” capturing the return of certain boxes to a storage room.

On Wednesday, Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump appointee currently presiding over the case, was scheduled to hear arguments on the latest request by the former president to dismiss the indictment.

He argues it fails to clearly articulate a crime and instead amounts to “a personal and political attack” against him.

His co-accused, Mr Nauta, will also seek to have his case thrown out.



He argues it amounts to selective prosecution because he opted not to co-operate in the probe.

Mr Trump is facing dozens of other charges in three other criminal cases.

He is currently in trial in New York over an alleged cover-up of hush-money payments to an adult-film star in 2016.







Documents stored in Trumps' bedroom





Boxes of documents stored in a bathroom at Trumps' Mar-a-Lago club in Florida in early 2021





15 boxes removed from Palm Beach estate






The case, among four criminal prosecutions against Trump, had been set for trial on May 20 but Cannon cancelled the trial date earlier this month.












Documents reveal FBI was authorised to use ‘deadly force’ in Trumps' Mar a Lago estate raid