Trump Documents Case Dismissed

[AUFAN78 4,130]

52 minutes ago, AU9377 said:

There was never a case.  That is more on point.  In Trump's situation, there were hundreds of documents illegally kept by him that he refused to return.  You all are all about classified documents if it relates to Hillary or Biden, but God forbid that Trump be required to abide by the law.

Show me where I argued for the prosecution of Trump or Biden's document cases. I'll wait. 

[Cardin Drake 2,074]

58 minutes ago, AU9377 said:

This kind of appointment has been approved by the courts going back to Nixon.  I get it.  You don't have any issue with not holding Trump to the same set of rules others are expected to abide by.

You might start by reading up on the expiration of the independent counsel law in 1999. 

[E'Town4Bama 170]

7 hours ago, AU9377 said:

So you believe that there is no case there?  That is hilarious.  The 11th circuit is almost certain to overturn her dismissal.  Think about it this way, if the Special Prosecutor was unlawfully appointed, then no Special Prosecutor could ever be appointed.

This is a judge that just threw her credibility on the federal bench under a bus and backed over it a few times.

Your opinion and you are entitled to it.

[E'Town4Bama 170]

1 hour ago, AU9377 said:

There was never a case.  That is more on point.  In Trump's situation, there were hundreds of documents illegally kept by him that he refused to return.  You all are all about classified documents if it relates to Hillary or Biden, but God forbid that Trump be required to abide by the law.

What about all the illegal documents Biden had since the 70's? He wasn't entitled to any of them! Trump had 5 years to declassify or return them to the national archives. Is 5 years up yet?

[AURex 2,214]

I'm not sure I understand why it requires an ACT OF CONGRESS to appoint a Special Investigator/Special Prosecutor for ANY case. DOJ is invested with the power to -- well -- INVESTIGATE and PROSECUTE cases in which FEDERAL laws have been violated. Where does this become a *Constitutional* issue?

I guess I'm just legally deficient. I don't get this reasoning.

That said, the FACT is that Trump illegally took/showed off U.S. Classified documents that BY LAW belong to the Federal government, and did everything he could to prevent the U.S. Government from retrieving those documents.

Even if the court rules that Smith was inappropriately appointed, it does not change the FACTS of the case. A different prosecutor can be assigned and Trump CONVICTED of stealing U.S. federal documents and obstructing recovery of those documents for the U.S. government.

 

[IronMan70 3,321]

6 hours ago, AU9377 said:

There was never a case.  That is more on point.  In Trump's situation, there were hundreds of documents illegally kept by him that he refused to return.  You all are all about classified documents if it relates to Hillary or Biden, but God forbid that Trump be required to abide by the law.

I'm not sure why but you keep saying things that aren't true. There is a huge difference between Trump and your Hillary/Biden comparison. A President Trump had the authority to declassify any document he wanted and include them in his personal papers. Only the President has that power. Neither Hillary as Sec of State or Biden as VP had that authority, making it illegal for them to take any classified material.

[AU9377 5,922]

20 minutes ago, IronMan70 said:

I'm not sure why but you keep saying things that aren't true. There is a huge difference between Trump and your Hillary/Biden comparison. A President Trump had the authority to declassify any document he wanted and include them in his personal papers. Only the President has that power. Neither Hillary as Sec of State or Biden as VP had that authority, making it illegal for them to take any classified material.

Trump's power to declassify ended the minute Joe Biden was sworn into office.  The documents in question had not been declassified.  I am not confusing one with the other.  I will compare the Biden and Trump cases if u want.  Joe Biden could have declassified any document in his garage immediately.  He didn't.  He simply cooperated with getting documents where they should be.  The facts surrounding the two cases could not be more starkly different one from the other.  As a sitting U.S. President, Biden sat for an interview.  Trump refused, even though he was no longer a government official.  He simply took the lying and obstruction to a higher level. 

Any source of information that tells you Trump simply didn't have time to get the documents returned is lying to you.  They begged and pleaded for them for 20 months.  Again, cooperation is key.  Trump was no longer President.

[IronMan70 3,321]

1 hour ago, AURex said:

I'm not sure I understand why it requires an ACT OF CONGRESS to appoint a Special Investigator/Special Prosecutor for ANY case. DOJ is invested with the power to -- well -- INVESTIGATE and PROSECUTE cases in which FEDERAL laws have been violated. Where does this become a *Constitutional* issue?

I guess I'm just legally deficient. I don't get this reasoning.

That said, the FACT is that Trump illegally took/showed off U.S. Classified documents that BY LAW belong to the Federal government, and did everything he could to prevent the U.S. Government from retrieving those documents.

Even if the court rules that Smith was inappropriately appointed, it does not change the FACTS of the case. A different prosecutor can be assigned and Trump CONVICTED of stealing U.S. federal documents and obstructing recovery of those documents for the U.S. government.

 

It's the appointments clause in the US Constitution. Smith was never nominated, vetted by committee and approved by Senate vote. He was just a civilian lawyer off the street. They could appoint another already approved, such as a US Attorney, but the problem is everything is now "tainted" by any action Smith was involved in. Trump didn't steal anything, he had the authority as President to declassify. Furthermore Trump's team was actively negotiating, which is his right, with the Dir of Archives about any documents they might have wanted. Jack Smith conducted his raid in the middle of all this but was then forced to admit to the Judge in court that the FBI doctored and staged the photos of the documents. It's all now tainted.

[IronMan70 3,321]

21 minutes ago, AU9377 said:

Trump's power to declassify ended the minute Joe Biden was sworn into office.  The documents in question had not been declassified.  I am not confusing one with the other.  I will compare the Biden and Trump cases if u want.  Joe Biden could have declassified any document in his garage immediately.  He didn't.  He simply cooperated with getting documents where they should be.  The facts surrounding the two cases could not be more starkly different one from the other.  As a sitting U.S. President, Biden sat for an interview.  Trump refused, even though he was no longer a government official.  He simply took the lying and obstruction to a higher level. 

Any source of information that tells you Trump simply didn't have time to get the documents returned is lying to you.  They begged and pleaded for them for 20 months.  Again, cooperation is key.  Trump was no longer President.

You got the first sentence right, the rest no. Trump and others said he declassified all the documents before he left office. Trump has the right to negotiate with the Dir of Archives about his papers for 5 years per the Records Act. Exercising his rights is not lying or obstruction, not even close. On Biden, ex post facto declassification years later wouldn't change the illegal act by Biden of taking classified documents without authorization as VP years earlier. The only reason he isn't facing that charge is because he is "a forgetful, elderly gentleman."  

Edited July 16 by IronMan70

[homersapien 12,172]

16 hours ago, Cardin Drake said:

Lol, yeah. Talking to your lawyers and campaign staff and attempting to overturn an election is called "contesting" it. Except in Fulton County where is is called "conspiring to change the results".   Unfortunately, it is going no where.  Would have loved to see it in court. 

Absolutely.

 

[homersapien 12,172]

15 hours ago, HAYinthemiddleoftheBARN said:

Trump's a gangsta! He's a survivor. So is Cam!

You actually got something right!

[homersapien 12,172]

9 hours ago, IronMan70 said:

You got the first sentence right, the rest no. Trump and others said he declassified all the documents before he left office. Trump has the right to negotiate with the Dir of Archives about his papers for 5 years per the Records Act. Exercising his rights is not lying or obstruction, not even close. On Biden, ex post facto declassification years later wouldn't change the illegal act by Biden of taking classified documents without authorization as VP years earlier. The only reason he isn't facing that charge is because he is "a forgetful, elderly gentleman."  

Actually, there is a process for that, including paperwork. 

Trump lied.

Edited July 16 by homersapien

[Leftfield 3,307]

9 hours ago, IronMan70 said:

A President Trump had the authority to declassify any document he wanted and include them in his personal papers. Only the President has that power. Neither Hillary as Sec of State or Biden as VP had that authority, making it illegal for them to take any classified material.

Trump had the authority, but he didn't do it. He just took them and never declassified them, and now cannot because he's no longer President.

Even if he did want them declassified, there is a process for it. He had to notify the archives. The files still need to be reviewed so relevant parties were aware and any release of sensitive information could be prepared for. And even then, regardless of his right to do it when he was President, it still would have been irresponsible to do it just because he wanted to, and not for any strategic purpose. 

 

9 hours ago, IronMan70 said:

Furthermore Trump's team was actively negotiating, which is his right, with the Dir of Archives about any documents they might have wanted. Jack Smith conducted his raid in the middle of all this but was then forced to admit to the Judge in court that the FBI doctored and staged the photos of the documents. It's all now tainted.

Trump had no right to negotiate for classified documents. They were not his, and he could no longer declassify them. All his actions were to stall so he could hide them. The raid was conducted when information came to light that he had not turned everything over earlier in the year, which he and his lawyers said he had. 

Second sentence is pure garbage. Smith did not admit that the FBI doctored or staged anything. He admitted that some of the evidence may not have been in the same order as it was found, but that it was all in the original boxes: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/03/mar-a-lago-trump-classified-documents-00156124

 

8 hours ago, IronMan70 said:

Trump and others said he declassified all the documents before he left office. 

Doesn't matter. As stated, there is a process. Saying a couple of years later that he declassified them is invalid. Who did he notify when he declassified them?

 

8 hours ago, IronMan70 said:

Trump has the right to negotiate with the Dir of Archives about his papers for 5 years per the Records Act.

The five years in the records act refers to public access to the Presidential documents. Has nothing to do with what we're discussing. Again, Trump had no right to keep classified documents. They were not his personal records, so the Presidential Records Act has nothing to do with it. 

If Trump had every right to these documents, then why did he withhold them and try to hide them? Why lie by saying he had given everything back? You complain about the raid, but it proved he had lied about returning all the documents. Why would he do that?

Also, do you not have any criticism for Trump regarding his handling of classified information in general? As stated in another thread, there are numerous examples of him revealing classified information - during interviews, a satellite photo he posted to Twitter, casual conversations at Mar-a-Lago. We've all heard about the documents that Biden and Pence had (and I'm sure there are tons of politicians that have had classified documents after the left office, whether they knew it or not), but we've never heard anything to the effect that anything of substance was disclosed, whereas Trump would brag about it.

 

Edited July 16 by Leftfield

[AU9377 5,922]

9 hours ago, IronMan70 said:

You got the first sentence right, the rest no. Trump and others said he declassified all the documents before he left office. Trump has the right to negotiate with the Dir of Archives about his papers for 5 years per the Records Act. Exercising his rights is not lying or obstruction, not even close. On Biden, ex post facto declassification years later wouldn't change the illegal act by Biden of taking classified documents without authorization as VP years earlier. The only reason he isn't facing that charge is because he is "a forgetful, elderly gentleman."  

Trump says a lot of things.  What we know is that he actually did not declassify all those documents before he left office.  How do we know this?  We know this because there is a process of declassification.  That process creates a record and no such record exists.

Ex post facto declassification is exactly what Trump will do if he is elected in November.  Something tells me that will be different in your mind. 

You claim that his age is the "only" reason he isn't facing a charge is another bit of changing of the narrative.  That was a consideration, but certainly not the only reason.

The 5 years you hang your hat on in the Records Act applies to his papers, NOT anything and everything he chooses. Below is a real explanation, not some self serving interpretation touted by Trump himself or his enablers.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-presidential-records-act-indictment-arraignment/

[IronMan70 3,321]

55 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Actually, there is a process for that, including the paperwork. 

Trump lied.

 

1 minute ago, Leftfield said:

Trump had the authority, but he didn't do it. He just took them and never declassified them, and now cannot because he's no longer President.

Even if he did want them declassified, there is a process for it. He had to notify the archives. The files still need to be reviewed so relevant parties were aware and any release of sensitive information could be prepared for. And even then, regardless of his right to do it when he was President, it still would have been irresponsible to do it just because he wanted to, and not for any strategic purpose. 

 

Trump had no right to negotiate for classified documents. They were not his, and he could no longer declassify them. All his actions were to stall so he could hide them. The raid was conducted when information came to light that he had not turned everything over earlier in the year, which he and his lawyers said he had. 

Second sentence is pure garbage. Smith did not admit that the FBI doctored or staged anything. He admitted that some of the evidence may not have been in the same order as it was found, but that it was all in the original boxes: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/03/mar-a-lago-trump-classified-documents-00156124

 

Doesn't matter. As stated, there is a process. Saying a couple of years later that he declassified them is invalid. Who did he notify when he declassified them?

 

The five years in the records act refers to public access to the Presidential documents. Has nothing to do with what we're discussing. Again, Trump had no right to keep classified documents. They were not his personal records, so the Presidential Records Act has nothing to do with it. 

If Trump had every right to these documents, then why did he withhold them and try to hide them? Why lie by saying he had given everything back? You complain about the raid, but it proved he had lied about returning all the documents. Why would he do that?

 

Well it does matter. Declassification occurs at the moment a President issues the verbal order which was done before he left office. You are twisting yourself into a pretzel for nothing. For instance what you are referencing on the documents refers to the pallet of docs received from the archives that were "rearranged" by Smith's staff. I am referring to the pic of the documents on the floor. He had to  admit to the Judge that was staged. 

[AU9377 5,922]

1 hour ago, homersapien said:

Actually, there is a process for that, including paperwork. 

Trump lied.

As shocking as that is....

[AU9377 5,922]

Just now, IronMan70 said:

 

Well it does matter. Declassification occurs at the moment a President issues the verbal order which was done before he left office. You are twisting yourself into a pretzel for nothing. For instance what you are referencing on the documents refers to the pallet of docs received from the archives that were "rearranged" by Smith's staff. I am referring to the pic of the documents on the floor. He had to  admit to the Judge that was staged. 

Nothing was staged about the boxes of classified documents left in a bathroom.  You see what you want to see and only hear what Trump says. 

[homersapien 12,172]

2 minutes ago, IronMan70 said:

 

Well it does matter. Declassification occurs at the moment a President issues the verbal order which was done before he left office. You are twisting yourself into a pretzel for nothing. For instance what you are referencing on the documents refers to the pallet of docs received from the archives that were "rearranged" by Smith's staff. I am referring to the pic of the documents on the floor. He had to  admit to the Judge that was staged. 

Yeah, you betcha.

Trump lies and you twist yourself into a pretzel trying to rationalize it.  Typical.

[Leftfield 3,307]

1 minute ago, IronMan70 said:

Well it does matter. Declassification occurs at the moment a President issues the verbal order which was done before he left office. You are twisting yourself into a pretzel for nothing.

You really have no idea what you're talking about. As @AU9377mentioned, there must be documentation of the declassification. None exists, because Trump didn't declassify them. He can't just say he did it - that would be an irresponsible process for the very reasons that have borne out.

 

3 minutes ago, IronMan70 said:

For instance what you are referencing on the documents refers to the pallet of docs received from the archives that were "rearranged" by Smith's staff. I am referring to the pic of the documents on the floor. He had to  admit to the Judge that was staged. 

Are you actually serious about this? That's standard procedure during evidence gathering. The documents and items were displayed for pictures, then returned to their containers. What's shady about that? The only issue was that some of the items may not have been in the same order they were found. Everything that was in a box was returned to the same box. The discrepancy was the nuance that everything may not have been returned in the exact same order it was found, which the prosecution initially indicated was the case. Smith didn't dance around that, he was forthcoming. Nothing was added or missing.

[IronMan70 3,321]

2 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Yeah, you betcha.

Trump lies and you twist yourself into a pretzel trying to rationalize it.  Typical.

Trump issued the verbal orders to a person which means there were witnesses. You choose to ignore that, Typical.

[Leftfield 3,307]

2 minutes ago, IronMan70 said:

Trump issued the verbal orders to a person which means there were witnesses. You choose to ignore that, Typical.

Who was the person? Who were the witnesses? Why is there no documentation? 

I'll ask again, even if Trump did it, does that show good judgement? He just grabs boxes and boxes of classified documents and says "these are mine" and waltzes off to Mar-a-Lago, with no regard to the process or who needs to review it or to the consequences others may face? 

[IronMan70 3,321]

6 minutes ago, Leftfield said:

You really have no idea what you're talking about. As @AU9377mentioned, there must be documentation of the declassification. None exists, because Trump didn't declassify them. He can't just say he did it - that would be an irresponsible process for the very reasons that have borne out.

 

Are you actually serious about this? That's standard procedure during evidence gathering. The documents and items were displayed for pictures, then returned to their containers. What's shady about that? The only issue was that some of the items may not have been in the same order they were found. Everything that was in a box was returned to the same box. The discrepancy was the nuance that everything may not have been returned in the exact same order it was found, which the prosecution initially indicated was the case. Smith didn't dance around that, he was forthcoming. Nothing was added or missing.

Actually it's you and Homer that have no no idea what you're talking about. Case in point among many, the "top secret" cover sheets you see in the pic did not belong to those particular files. They were staged and Smith had to admit that.

[Leftfield 3,307]

7 minutes ago, IronMan70 said:

Actually it's you and Homer that have no no idea what you're talking about. Case in point among many, the "top secret" cover sheets you see in the pic did not belong to those particular files. They were staged and Smith had to admit that.

Source?

Also, you say "case in point among many". Can you give a few other examples of the "many"?

Edited July 16 by Leftfield

[AU9377 5,922]

21 minutes ago, IronMan70 said:

Actually it's you and Homer that have no no idea what you're talking about. Case in point among many, the "top secret" cover sheets you see in the pic did not belong to those particular files. They were staged and Smith had to admit that.

Think for a minute.  Documents do not have to be in a folder marked for the contents to be top secret or classified top secret.  Of course they were placed in top secret folders when the evidence was collected.  Right wing media has taken the smallest point of truth and transformed that into a talking point that means very little in a practical sense. 

Why do you think the judge did not dismiss the case because no crime was shown?  She couldn't.  She had to find a way to dismiss the case that was outside the facts of the the indictment.  Therefore, she dismissed by claiming that the Special Counsel didn't have the authority to bring the indictment.  At no point did she conclude that there was no evidence of criminal activity.

What someone doesn't say is often as important or more important than what they do say. 

Edited July 16 by AU9377

[IronMan70 3,321]

1 hour ago, Leftfield said:

Source?

Also, you say "case in point among many". Can you give a few other examples of the "many"?

Sure, here are just two. In addition there is the court filing by Jay Bratt, the lead DOJ Prosecutor.

 

FBI Brought Props To Stage Infamous Trump Crime Scene Photo | The Daily Caller

FBI Brought Props To Stage Infamous Trump Crime Scene Photo

The FBI brought props to its raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago for classified documents that were pictured in an infamous photo taken at the alleged crime scene, according to court documents.

Jay Bratt, the lead Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutor now assigned to special counsel Jack Smith’s team, admitted in a recent court filing that FBI agents brought cover sheets reading “top secret” to the raid of Mar-a-Lago to use as placeholders in their gathering of classified documents. The classified documents, however, now appear to be out of order following their seizure, both Trump’s defense attorney and the special counsel have admitted, according to court documents first reported by Declassified with Julie Kelly.

The crime scene photo of classified documents allegedly found at Mar-a-Lago, complete with the bright red “classification” cover sheets, went viral in the weeks after the raid. Corporate media outlets breathlessly reported on the photo and the cover sheets as proof that Trump had been storing classified documents at his Florida property.

“[If] the investigative team found a document with classification markings, it removed the document, segregated it, and replaced it with a placeholder sheet. The investigative team used classified cover sheets for that purpose,” Bratt wrote in a recent filing.

In a May filing, defense attorneys for Trump c0-defendant Waltine Nauta wrote that the placeholders which the FBI brought to the scene to mark classified documents in stacks were out of place.

 

“Following defense counsel’s review of the physical boxes…and the documents produced in classified discovery, defense counsel has learned that the cross-reference provided by the Special Counsel’s Office does not contain accurate information,” the attorneys wrote, according to Kelly.

DOJ and the media have lied about the infamous photo of alleged classified documents seized during FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago. New court filings prove the FBI used cover sheets depicted in the photo during the raid. That's not how the records were found:

New disclosures in Special Counsel Jack Smith's espionage case against Donald Trump reveal the FBI tampered with evidence to create the infamous photo--and DOJ has lied about it for nearly two years.

 

“[Thirteen] boxes or containers contained documents with classification markings, and in all, over one hundred unique documents with classification markings…were seized. Certain of the documents had colored cover sheets indicating their classification status. (Emphasis added.) See, e.g., Attachment F (redacted FBI photograph of certain documents and classified cover sheets recovered from a container in the ‘45 office’),” Bratt wrote in an August 2022 court filing.

Kelly writes that Bratt’s original filing did not explain where those classified document sheets had come from, though later he admitted that the sheets were in fact brought to the scene by FBI agents.

“In other words, in their zeal to stage a phony photo using official classified cover sheets, FBI agents might have failed to accurately match the placeholder sheet with the appropriate document. This is a potentially case-blowing mistake, particularly if the docu

ment in question is one of the 34 records that represents the basis of espionage charges against Trump,” Kelly reported.

In response to Nauta’s filing, Bratt admitted that the placeholders had been rearranged, and that not all of them had been properly matched with the right placeholder sheet, according to a court document.

“In many but not all instances, the FBI was able to determine which document with classification markings corresponded to a particular placeholder sheet,” Bratt wrote in response to the defense attorney’s request for more time.

While Trump is being charged for mishandling classified documents, President Joe Biden had a special counsel of his own investigate him for his handling of similarly classified documents. Despite the FBI seizing documents from Biden’s Delaware home, the photo of the raid showed the president’s documents in boxes, rather than sprawled out with “top secret” placeholders. 

 

The DOJ's Doctored Crime Scene Photo of Mar-a-Lago Raid 

The DOJ's Doctored Crime Scene Photo of Mar-a-Lago Raid

New disclosures in Special Counsel Jack Smith's espionage case against Donald Trump reveal the FBI tampered with evidence to create the infamous photo--and DOJ has lied about it for nearly two years.

 

It is the picture that launched a thousand pearl-clutching articles.

A few weeks after the armed FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago in August 2022, the Department of Justice released a stunning photograph depicting alleged contraband seized from Donald Trump’s Palm Beach estate that day; the image showed colored sheets representing scary classification levels attached to files purportedly discovered in Trump’s private office.

Included as a government exhibit to oppose Trump’s lawsuit requesting a special master to vet the 13,000 items taken from his residence, the crime scene pic immediately went viral—just as Attorney General Merrick Garland, who authorized the unprecedented raid, intended. 

At the time, even regime-friendly mouthpieces questioned the need and optics of the raid; the photo helped juice the DOJ’s justification for the storming of Trump’s castle.

“[The] question of whether Trump had classified material with him at his Mar-a-Lago resort has captured the public’s attention. The photo published by the government appears to answer that question quite affirmatively,” Washington Post resident fact checker Philip Bump wrote on August 31, 2022.

Some of Bump’s colleagues were more hyperbolic. An ex-CIA officer told ABC News the cover sheets indicated the highest level of secrecy, which in the wrong hands could have resulted in murder. “People's lives are truly at stake. Without being melodramatic, anything that helps an adversary identify a human source means life and death," intelligence expert Douglas London melodramatically warned in reaction to the photo.

The New York Times insisted the photo was consistent with how the FBI handles criminal investigations. “[It] is standard practice for the F.B.I. to take evidentiary pictures of materials recovered in a search to ensure that items are properly cataloged and accounted for. Files or documents are not tossed around randomly, even though they might appear that way; they are usually splayed out so they can be separately identified by their markings,” reporters Glenn Thrush and Adam Goldman wrote on August 31, 2022.

Except…that is not what happened.

A Stunt with Potentially Case-Killing Consequences for DOJ

New court filings in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s espionage and obstruction case against Trump and two co-defendants conclusively demonstrate that the government used the cover sheets to deceive the public as well as the court. The photo was a stunt, and one that adds more fuel to this dumpster-fire case.

Jay Bratt, who was the lead DOJ prosecutor on the investigation at the time and now is assigned to Smith’s team, described the photo this way in his August 30, 2022 response to Trump’s special master lawsuit:

“[Thirteen] boxes or containers contained documents with classification markings, and in all, over one hundred unique documents with classification markings…were seized. Certain of the documents had colored cover sheets indicating their classification status. (Emphasis added.) See, e.g., Attachment F (redacted FBI photograph of certain documents and classified cover sheets recovered from a container in the ‘45 office’).”

The DOJ’s clever wordsmithing, however, did not accurately describe the origin of the cover sheets. In what must be considered not only an act of doctoring evidence but willfully misleading the American people into believing the former president is a criminal and threat to national security, agents involved in the raid attached the cover sheets to at least seven files to stage the photo.

Classified cover sheets were not “recovered” in the container, contrary to Bratt’s declaration to the court. In fact, after being busted recently by defense attorneys for mishandling evidence in the case, Bratt had to fess up about how the cover sheets actually ended up on the documents.  

Here is Bratt’s new version of the story, where he finally admits a critical detail that he failed to disclose in his August 2022 filing:

“[If] the investigative team found a document with classification markings, it removed the document, segregated it, and replaced it with a placeholder sheet. The investigative team used classified cover sheets for that purpose.”

But before the official cover sheets were used as placeholder, agents apparently used them as props. FBI agents took it upon themselves to paperclip the sheets to documents—something evident given the uniform nature of how each cover sheet is clipped to each file in the photo—laid them on the floor, and snapped a picture for political posterity.

That raises many troubling questions, to say the least, about the FBI’s handling of the alleged incriminating documents.

For example, who made the on-site determination as to the classification level appropriate for each document? Did agents have security clearance and expertise related to classification? Did the agents know whether the document had been declassified by Trump while still in office?

The hasty assessment also appears to contradict Bratt’s statements in court about the classification status of the seized documents. Bratt told Judge Aileen Cannon during a hearing last year that the records were undergoing a classification review, presumably conducted by the intelligence community, to determine the correct level of secrecy. 

Did the final analysis confirm or dispute the assessments by the field FBI agents who conducted the raid?

Missing Paper Trial and Messy Boxes

But Jack Smith might have bigger problems. During the raid, agents took a box in its entirety if it contained papers with classified markings; the box usually contained other items, which is how the FBI ended up with so many of Trump’s personal belongings.

So, in order to flag the location of the alleged classified record in the box, agents, as Bratt noted, used the cover sheets as placeholders. (The classified records were then placed in a separate secure file.)

But now defense attorneys claim, and the special counsel concedes, that some placeholders do not match the relevant document. “Following defense counsel’s review of the physical boxes…and the documents produced in classified discovery, defense counsel has learned that the cross-reference provided by the Special Counsel’s Office does not contain accurate information,” attorneys representing Trump’s co-defendant Waltine Nauta wrote in a May 1 motion.

The motion forced the special counsel to admit the error. “In many but not all instances, the FBI was able to determine which document with classification markings corresponded to a particular placeholder sheet,” Bratt wrote.

In other words, in their zeal to stage a phony photo using official classified cover sheets, FBI agents might have failed to accurately match the placeholder sheet with the appropriate document. This is a potentially case-blowing mistake, particularly if the document in question is one of the 34 records that represents the basis of espionage charges against Trump.

And there is another issue in connection with the cover sheets. Defense attorneys also noted that in at least one instance, the location of the cover sheet in the physical box didn’t match the FBI’s accounting. “[The] sheet…does not appear for several hundreds of pages later than the FBI Index indicated it would. Defense counsel’s review of these materials calls into question the likelihood that the contents of the physical boxes remains (sic) the same as when they were seized by the FBI on August 8, 2022.”

Which Bratt also admitted is an issue. After the boxes were transported from Florida to the hopelessly corrupt Washington FBI field office (another scandalous aspect of the case since the investigation should have been conducted in southern Florida not in another jurisdiction), a private company took scans of the inside of the boxes. But according to the defense team, the current condition of the boxes does not match the scans taken in August 2022. 

Bratt explained that “there are some boxes where the order of items within that box is not the same as in the associated scans.” He then offered a list of excuses including how some “boxes contain items smaller than standard paper such as index cards, books, and stationary, which shift easily when the boxes are carried, especially because many of the boxes are not full.”

It is safe to assume Judge Cannon will not take these new revelations lightly--particularly since Bratt also had to admit in the same filing that he did not tell her the truth when she asked about the condition of the boxes during a hearing last month. On April 12, Cannon directly asked Bratt, “are the boxes in their original, intact form as seized?” Bratt replied yes, but “with one exception, and that is that the classified documents have been removed and placeholders have been put in the documents [place.]”

Oof.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, Jack Smith’s team might need several thousand words to weasel their way out of this mess.

Edited July 16 by IronMan70