LET’S REVISIT TRUMP’S INDICTMENT FOR STEALING CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS
Yesterday I wondered aloud how many Epstein-related documents might have been in the boxes and boxes of classified documents which Trump stole as he left the White House in January of 2021.
And that got me to thinking that it was time to revisit that indictment, and so I dug it up (and it’s included for Notes from the Front members).
Now, not to put too fine a point on it, but Trump – our president – was indicted on *37* counts in that missing documents case, including “Corruptly Concealing a Document or Record”, “Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice”, and “Willful Retention of National Defense Information”.
These charges carry maximum prison terms of from 5 to 20 years, and maximum fines per count of $250,000. The most serious, carrying up to 20 year prison terms, are the Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice, Withholding a Document or Record, Corruptly Concealing a Document or Record, and Concealing a Document in a Federal Investigation.
And to remind you, the reason that Trump got away with all of it was because he won the 2024 election, and so Jack Smith “had” to drop the case. I put “had” in quotes because it’s not so much a law as DOJ policy: you don’t prosecute a sitting president. And why would you, because at that point it’s that president’s DOJ (and nowhere is this more clear than with *this* DOJ).
In fact, facing this, it’s likely that Trump would have done anything – ANYTHING – to win the presidency again so that he could make it go away.
The indictment starts out explaining that “At 12:00 p.m. on January 20, 2021, TRUMP ceased to be president. As he departed the White House, Trump caused scores of boxes, many of which contained classified documents, to be transported to The Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, where he maintained his residence. Trump was not authorized to possess or retain those classified documents.”
“The Mar-a-Lago Club was an active social club, which, between January 2021 and August 2022, hosted events for tens of thousands of members and guests. After Trump’s presidency, The Mar-a-Lago Club was not an authorized location for the storage, possession, review, display, or discussion of classified documents. Nevertheless, Trump stored his boxes containing classified documents in various locations at The Mar-a-Lago Club-including in a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, an office space, his bedroom, and a storage room.”
Now, as a reminder of what a class act our current president is, here are two incidents recounted in the indictment:
“In July 2021, at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey (“The Bedminster Club”), during an audio-recorded meeting with a writer, a publisher, and two members of his staff, none of whom possessed a security clearance, TRUMP showed and described a “plan of attack” that Trump said was prepared for him by the Department of Defense and a senior military official. TRUMP told the individuals that the plan was “highly confidential” and “secret.” TRUMP also said, “as president I could have declassified it,” and, “Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.” ”
And:
“In August or September 2021, at The Bedminster Club, Trump showed a representative of his political action committee who did not possess a security clearance a classified map related to a military operation and told the representative that he should not be showing it to the representative and that the representative should not get too close.” ”
As for the actual obstruction?
“On March 30, 2022, the Federal Bureau of lnvestigation (“FBI”) opened a criminal investigation into the unlawful retention of classified documents at The Mar-a-Lago Club. A federal grand jury investigation began the next month. The grand jury issued a subpoena requiring Trump to tum over all documents with classification markings. Trump endeavored to obstruct the FBI and grand jury investigations and conceal his continued retention of classified documents by, among other things:
a. suggesting that his attorney falsely represent to the FBI and grand jury that Trump did not have documents called for by the grand jury subpoena;
b. directing defendant Waltine Nauta to move boxes of documents to conceal them from Trump’s attorney, the FBI, and the grand jury;
c. suggesting that his attorney hide or destroy documents called for by the grand jury subpoena;
d. providing to the FBI and grand jury just some of the documents called for by the grand jury subpoena, while claiming that he was cooperating fully; and
e. causing a certification to be submitted to the FBI and grand jury falsely representing that all documents called for by the grand jury subpoena had been produced-while knowing that, in fact, not all such documents had been produced.”
This trip down indictment lane brought to you by, well, the antics of our president.
Notes from the Front members: The full 49-page indictment is in your inbox in case you want to do a deeper dive.
If you’re not a Notes from the Front member, you can join below and support my efforts grabbing, storing and preserving original source documents before they can be tampered with or disappeared. I make these documents, which I often pay for out of my own pocket, privately available to Notes from the Front members, including the Epstein files which I grab as soon as they are dropped and which I store for our members on our private dropbox (which I also pay for out of my own pocket). And hey! Bonus! You get to join our *private* chat where we discuss these things with each other! (There are several active discussions about Epstein stuff going on there right now.)
You can join below for immediate access to this and *all* of the other documents I’ve shared since the beginning, our private dropbox, and our private chat for $5 a month.
https://annepmitchell.substack.com/p/lets-revisit-trumps-indictment-for
Source