If you’re going to raid a former president’s compound looking for classified documents he allegedly pilfered from the White House, then attempted to conceal from authorities, it’s probably a good idea to search inside his locked closets and hidden rooms. But according to a new report from ABC News, FBI agents may have missed a few potential hiding places when they searchedDonald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in August of 2022. Per the report, before indicting Trump and two employees in the classified-documents case, special counsel Jack Smith’s team questioned witnesses about two apparently unsearched spaces in Trump’s Florida residence:
According to sources, some investigators involved in the case came to later believe that [a] closet, which was locked on the day of the search, should have been opened and checked. As investigators would later learn, Trump allegedly had the closet’s lock changed while his attorney was in Mar-a-Lago’s basement, searching for classified documents in a storage room that he was told would have all such documents. Trump’s alleged efforts to conceal classified documents from both the FBI and his own attorney are a key part of Smith’s indictment against Trump in Florida …
In addition to the closet, the FBI also didn’t search what authorities have called a “hidden room” connected to Trump’s bedroom, sources said. Smith’s investigators were later told that, in the days right after the search, some of Trump’s employees heard that the FBI had missed at least one room at Mar-a-Lago, the sources said.
Per the same sources, when the agents “couldn’t locate a key for [the closet] and were told the space behind the door — an old stairwell turned into a closet with shelves — went nowhere, so they decided not to break it open.”
And they said that the FBI agents weren’t made aware of the so-called hidden room until afterward:
Though agents searched Trump’s bedroom, a small door in one of the walls was concealed behind a large dresser and a big TV, sources said. The space behind the wall was the “hidden room,” which maintenance workers sporadically entered to access cables running through it, sources said.
But an unnamed senior FBI official who spoke with ABC News maintained that the search went according to plan:
Based on information gathered throughout the course of the investigation, areas were identified and searched pursuant to the search warrant … Discussions took place that day about additional areas of the property and it was determined that actions already taken met the parameters of the search warrant.
The report stresses that it’s not clear Trump ever stored any classified documents in the closet or the “hidden room” to begin with. The classified documents the agents did recover during the raid were found in Trump’s office and in a basement storage room. There were additional classified documents at Trump’s properties, however. A Trump attorney subsequently found some and handed them over to the Justice Department after conducting another search of the former president’s properties, including Mar-a-Lago.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for former President Donald Trump foreshadowed elements of their defense in the criminal case charging him with illegally retaining classified documents, saying in a motion filed Tuesday that they will dispute prosecutors’ allegations that the estate where the records were stored was not secure.
The defense team also said in a wide-ranging court filing that they are seeking communication between the Justice Department prosecution team and associates of President Joe Biden in hopes of advancing their claims that the classified documents case is “politically motivated” and designed to harm Trump’s 2024 campaign.
The brief, which asks a judge to compel special counsel Jack Smith’s team to turn over a trove of information, offers the most expansive view yet of potential lines of defense in one of the four criminal cases Trump faces as he seeks to capture the Republican nomination and reclaim the White House.
“The Special Counsel’s Office has disregarded basic discovery obligations and DOJ policies in an effort to support the Biden Administration’s egregious efforts to weaponize the criminal justice system in pursuit of an objective that President Biden cannot achieve on the campaign trail: slowing down President Trump’s leading campaign in the 2024 presidential election,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.
A spokesman for Smith declined to comment Tuesday night. Prosecutors will have a chance to respond to the filing, and are likely to tell U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that much of the material defense lawyers are seeking is not relevant to the case.
A June 2023 indictment charging Trump with dozens of felony counts alleges that investigators found boxes of sensitive documents recklessly stored at Mar-a-Lago in spaces including a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, his bedroom and a storage room. Prosecutors have said the documents he stowed, refused to return and in some cases showed to visitors risked jeopardizing not only relations with foreign nations but also the safety of troops and confidential sources.
But defense lawyers said in their motion that they intend to dispute allegations that “Mar-a-Lago was not secure and that there was a risk that materials stored at those premises could be compromised.”
They argued that prosecutors should be forced to disclose all information related to what they have previously described as “temporary secure locations” at Mar-a-Lago and other Trump properties. They contended that such evidence would refute prosecutors’ allegations because the Secret Service took steps to secure the residences and made arrangements for him to review and discuss classified information.
Trump’s lawyers also referenced what they said was an Energy Department action in June, after the charges were filed, to “retroactively terminate” a security clearance for the former president.
They demanded more information about that, saying evidence of a post-presidential possession of a security clearance was relevant for potential arguments of “good-faith and non-criminal states of mind relating to possession of classified materials.”
The case is currently scheduled for trial on May 20, but that date may be pushed back.
Famed journalist Bob Woodward rejected the idea that Donald Trump was “too busy” to return boxes of classified documents that had been stored at Mar-a-Lago, recalling long conversations he had with the former president at the time while he was researching a book.
Mr Trump was served a subpoena by the Department of Justice in 2022 demanding that he turn over any classified documents he had taken from the White House after he left office in 2021. The former president and his team only returned some of the documents, which prompted an FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago last August. The FBI turned up hundreds of more documents that were still being stored in boxes at the golf resort.
The incident has led to one of Mr Trump’s numerous ongoing legal battles as he is accused of withholding and concealing from federal investigators classified and top-secret materials. He has also been accused by DOJ special counsel Jack Smith of directing Mar-a-Lago workers to move boxes around the resort to keep them out of the hands of federal investigators.
Mr Trump and the co-defendants have all pleaded not guilty to the federal charges against them, which include conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Woodward, who has written four books focused on Mr Trump and serves as an associate editor of The Washington Post, sat down for an interview on MSNBC during which he recalled the former president frequently insisting he was “too busy” to talk for long, but ultimately would spend more time than Woodward had allotted chatting with him.
“That he’s not busy. That it’s a way of, oh, I’m busy. I would talk to him, you can hear this on the tapes. He’d say, I can’t talk for long, I’ve got the joint chiefs downstairs. And then he’d talk for 25 minutes,” Woodward said.
Mr Trump is currently attempting to sue Woodward, his publisher, Simon & Schuster, and its parent company, Paramount Global, for releasing 20 recorded interviews the former president had with Woodward for his book Rage. Mr Trump claims he recorded the interviews solely for use in the book, and is accusing Woodward – best known for his Watergate exposes alongside fellow reporter Carl Bernstein in the early 1970s – and his publishers of trying to “capitalise” off of his “valuable” voice.
The lawsuit is asking for $49m.
While that case navigates the courts, the case against Mr Trump for his alleged concealment of sensitive government information is set to go to trial next year.
Granting Donald Trump‘s request to delay his classified-documents case in Florida could present the opportunity for the former president’s other criminal cases to head to trial ahead of the presidential election, according to Glenn Kirschner, legal analyst and former federal prosecutor.
Trump is facing a plethora of legal troubles while campaigning for a second shot at the White House, and several of the cases against him are scheduled to begin trial before the November 2024 election, starting with the former president’s federal election subversion case, which is set to begin March 4.
The ex-president, who maintains innocence in all 91 felony charges spread over four criminal indictments against him, has pleaded to push his trial dates until after next fall. The requests have been dismissed in several cases, although Trump may get his wish in Florida, where presiding federal Judge Aileen Cannon—a Trump appointee who has faced accusations of being biased toward the former president—has agreed to revisit the trial schedule set for the investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents after leaving the White House.
That indictment, brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith, is slated for court in May.
Former President Donald Trump speaks to a crowd of supporters at Fort Dodge Senior High School on November 18, 2023, in Fort Dodge, Iowa. Delaying Trump’s criminal trial in Florida could open the door for his other court cases ahead of the 2024 election, legal experts say. Jim Vondruska/Getty Images
While speaking with progressive political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen on Thursday, Kirschner, a staunch Trump critic, said it is likely that the former president’s trial date set in Florida will be delayed by Cannon, but added that doing so could “screw” over Trump, given that it may allow prosecutors in Georgia—where Trump is facing a sprawling racketeering case in which he’s accused of attempting to overturn the state’s 2020 election results—to get their desired trial date.
“Judge Cannon may have been trying to help Donald Trump out a little bit, [but] she may have put him right in the soup,” Kirschner said during an episode of Cohen’s podcast.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, leading the investigation into Trump’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) charges in Georgia, requested last week that her case head to trial on August 5. Willis’ office in August charged Trump and 18 co-defendants, accusing them in a scheme to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.
Cohen followed up on Kirschner’s comments, asking if Cannon “may have actually screwed” Trump by “opening up his schedule” in the event that the Florida case is delayed.
“Yeah, she may have delayed Donald Trump right into an August RICO trial date,” Kirschner responded. “And here’s what people should know. You know, folks might say … ‘If he’s scheduled to go to trial in Florida in his documents, obstruction, espionage case beginning on May 20, couldn’t they finish that trial, and then go right into the early August trial in Georgia?’ The answer is almost certainly no.”
“Why do I say that?” the former prosecutor continued. “Because if a defendant is in trial for two or three months, even if technically that defendant is no longer in that trial beginning on August 5, there’s not a judge in the land who will say, ‘OK, Trump, you were just in trial for three months … Now we’re going to make you and your defense team go right into a trial in another jurisdiction without a breather.’”
Experts have warned that delaying Trump’s case in Florida could have other political and legal repercussions. Some critics have feared that if criminal trials are not completed before the 2024 election, the former president could pardon himself once in the White House if he wins reelection. Trump could also order the Justice Department to shut down the investigation against him.
Following Trump’s March 4 trial date connected to federal allegations that he attempted to overturn the 2020 election, the former president is scheduled to head to Manhattan court March 25 over charges connected to hush-money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign. A defamation suit brought against Trump by former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll is also scheduled for court on January 15—the same day as the Iowa caucuses.
Newsweek reached out to Trump’s campaign for comment Thursday night.
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Ft. Pierce, Florida — The special counsel’s classified documents case against former President Donald Trump faces the possibility of delays that would take the trial deeper into the 2024 election cycle, after a federal judge in Florida indicated Wednesday she might grant Trump’s request to alter the pretrial schedule.
File: Judge Aileen Cannon, in 2020.
US Senate/AP
Judge Aileen Cannon — a Trump appointee to the federal bench — heard arguments on Wednesday from the former president’s attorneys and special counsel Jack Smith’s team over Trump’s attempt to change the litigation schedule in a way that could push the trial date — currently scheduled for May 2024 — until after the 2024 presidential election.
“I’m having a hard time seeing how this schedule could work with such compressed schedules of so many trials in multiple jurisdictions,” Cannon said from the bench Wednesday, noting that Trump has another federal case, also brought by Smith, in Washington, D.C., which is set to go to trial in Jan. 2024, as well as other legal deadlines stemming from the state charges he faces.
While Judge Cannon did not say how or when she will rule, she indicated it was possible the trial could be pushed off within a reasonable timeframe to make room in Trump’s legal schedule and to ensure his team is able to examine all of the evidence in the case.
Trump’s attorney, Todd Blanche, told the court his team would not be ready for the current scheduled trial date because of a “voluminous” amount of evidence, including sensitive government records.
The former president is charged with dozens of counts that involve allegations that he illegally possessed national defense information, charges that were brought after the FBI recovered documents with classified markings from his Mar-a-Lago home last year. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges — which also include accusations that he allegedly conspired to obstruct the probe — as have his two co-defendants charged in the case.
In court papers, Trump’s defense team has described the current schedule as a “rush to trial” and asked Cannon to change the schedule, and his co-defendants — aides Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira — took a similar stance. Nauta and De Olivera have both pleaded not guilty in the case.
Cannon questioned whether Trump’s lawyers will have enough time to review the evidence in the next six months, pointing to the 1.3 million pages of documents and years’ worth of security camera footage prosecutors have provided the defense, as well as over 5,500 pages of classified material that can only be looked at in a secure location.
But Smith’s team in court filings and at Wednesday’s hearing pushed back, arguing the requested delays are “not a surprise,” but an attempt to drag out the proceedings.
“If you look at what has been done by the defense’s position, they delay as long as they can,” prosecutor Jay Bratt told Cannon, urging her to keep the May 2024 trial date.
In court papers, the special counsel’s office said, “[T]he Government has provided the defendants extensive, prompt, and well-organized unclassified discovery, yielding an exhaustive roadmap of proof of the detailed allegations in the superseding indictment. The vast majority of classified discovery is also available to the defendants.”
Wednesday’s hearing was not the first time the former president has asked a federal judge to wait until after the election to start one of the special counsel’s trials. Earlier this year, Trump lobbied Judge Tanya Chutkan to delay the 2020 election-related case against him until April 2026, noting the amount of evidence in the case and the presidential election.
Chutkanultimately ruled 2026 was far too long to wait and ordered the case to begin in March 2024, during the presidential primary campaign. “Mr. Trump will have to make this trial date work … regardless of his schedule,” Chutkan said at the time and has since indicated the date will not change.
The former president has pleaded not guilty in both federal cases against him and has denied all wrongdoing.
The Republican-led House Oversight Committee says it has evidence that a White House employee inspected President Biden’s papers stored at the Penn Biden Center in March 2021, far earlier than previously known. The panel wants to interview several current and former senior White House officials in connection with its widening investigation into Mr. Biden’s handling of classified documents that stem from his time as vice president.
There is no indication that White House employees visiting the Penn Biden Center noticed or removed documents marked classified among Mr. Biden’s papers prior to their discovery on Nov. 2, 2022.
In a letter to White House counsel Edward Siskel obtained by CBS News, committee Chairman James Comer, Republican of Kentucky, said the timeline of events provided by Mr. Biden’s personal attorney “omitted months of communications, planning, and coordinating.”
According to the letter, a Penn Biden Center employee told the committee that on March 18, 2021, senior White House aide Annie Tomasini “[took] inventory of President Biden’s documents and materials” stored at the center, where he had a private office after his vice presidency.
The witness also told investigators that on Oct. 13, 2022, Ashley Williams, deputy director of Oval Office Operations, removed “a few” of Mr. Biden’s boxes.
The White House has said all relevant documents were moved to either the National Archives or the Justice Department. Bob Bauer, Mr. Biden’s personal attorney, has previously said classified documents were first uncovered at the Penn Biden Center on Nov. 2, 2022. Additional documents with classification markings were found at the president’s Delaware home in January.
The committee, which has conducted three witness interviews, says on five occasions, White House employees, including former White House Counsel Dana Remus, and the president’s former assistant Kathy Chung, a current Department of Defense employee, went to the Penn Biden Center to take inventory, pack up or remove materials. These visits occurred between March 2021 and mid-October 2022.
The committee has so far declined to release full transcripts of the witness interviews.
Comer’s letter continues, “There is no reasonable explanation as to why this many White House employees and lawyers were so concerned with retrieving boxes they believed only contained personal documents and materials.”
In a sign that the committee’s investigation is broadening, it is requesting transcribed interviews with Remus, Williams, Tomasini, Anthony Bernal, a top adviser to the first lady, and Katie Reilly, a West Wing aide. It is also asking for documentation and communication related to the documents. The committee has already interviewed Chung, who was then-Vice President Biden’s assistant.
A spokeswoman for Democrats on the House Oversight Committee said in a statement, “Former President Trump’s willful retention of hundreds of highly classified documents, his defiance of court-ordered subpoenas, his reported disclosure of our country’s most sensitive national security information, and false statements to law enforcement should worry the Chair of a congressional committee with jurisdiction over government records.”
She continued, “Instead Chairman Comer is using the Committee to focus on President Biden whose complete cooperation with the Special Counsel’s investigation stands in stark contrast, including voluntarily participating in a two-day interview with the Special Counsel, and opening the doors to his Penn Biden Center office and private residence to investigators.”
An attorney for Remus and a spokesperson for Bauer did not respond to a request for comment.
Chung’s attorney, William W. Taylor, had no comment.
Oversight Committee staff members have not reviewed the more than two dozen classified documents in question, but plan to make a request to do so soon, according to a committee aide.
Comer’s request for interviews and documents comes days after special counsel Robert Hur personally interviewed the president as part of the Justice Department’s investigation into the same matter. That investigation, which began in January, is ongoing and the interview with Mr. Biden may be a sign that it is nearing a conclusion.
Mr. Biden has pledged full cooperation with Hur’s investigation. The White House declined comment on Comer’s letter, citing the ongoing special counsel investigation.
In January, White House lawyer Richard Sauber told CBS News that “a small number of documents with classified markings” were found when Mr. Biden’s personal attorneys “were packing files housed in a locked closet to prepare to vacate office space at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C.”
The Presidential Records Act requires all presidential and vice-presidential documents be turned over to the National Archives at the end of an administration’s term.
Former President Donald Trump faces 40 counts of illegally retaining classified material and obstructing efforts to retrieve it. He has pleaded not guilty. Oversight Committee Republicans have shown little interest in investigating Trump’s handling of classified material.
President Biden has been interviewed by the special counsel investigating the president’s handling of classified docs from when he was vice president. Mr. Biden met with special counsel Robert Hur on Sunday and Monday.
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Washington — Special counsel Jack Smith and his team of prosecutors accused lawyers for former President Donald Trump of making “distorted and exaggerated” claims about their access to classified information as part of their bid to delay the scheduled May 2024 trial in the federal case involving the former president’s handling of sensitive government records after leaving office.
In a new filing submitted Monday, the special counsel urged U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who is overseeing the case brought in South Florida, to deny Trump’s request to delay the trial until after the November 2024 presidential election, arguing his lawyers failed to provide a “credible justification” for doing so.
“Their unfounded claims of Government noncompliance with discovery obligations do not support their request,” federal prosecutors working with Smith wrote. “Their claims about their inability to review classified information are distorted and exaggerated.”
Justice Department lawyers said the “vast majority” of classified material collected during the course of the government’s investigation is available to Trump and his two co-defendants, aide Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira. Smith and his team also argued that the defense’s claims about the unclassified information collected during the probe are “inaccurate.”
“The defendants have repeatedly distorted the comprehensive, organized, and timely unclassified discovery that the Government has produced, in service of an attack on the promptness and thoroughness of the productions and an allegation that the Government is in ‘ongoing non-compliance,’” prosecutors wrote. “The facts prove otherwise.”
Trump’s lawyers asked Cannon last week to delay the trial, currently set to begin May 20, until after the Nov. 5, 2024, election, citing the status of discovery, a lack of necessary secure facilities, and litigation under the Classified Information Procedures Act, which governs how classified information can be being used in the case.
Trump is currently the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination. He has pleaded not guilty to 40 charges stemming from his alleged mishandling of sensitive records recovered from his South Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, after leaving office in January 2021.
In their filing opposing Trump’s request, Justice Department lawyers noted that they have turned over more than 1.1 million pages of unclassified documents and all surveillance footage from Mar-a-Lago obtained before May. The latest batch of information was turned over Friday, the special counsel said. With that production, prosecutors said they had provided Trump’s lawyers with “all unclassified discovery of which it is aware,” aside from certain agents’ emails and text messages.
“The Government’s production of unclassified discovery has been prompt, comprehensive, thorough, and organized,” the special counsel’s office argued. “The defense has complete access to it today, more than seven months before trial.”
Federal prosecutors also rebutted claims from Trump’s lawyers about their access to classified material collected during the investigation, calling them “inaccurate” and “misleading.” While acknowledging that Trump is entitled to classified discovery in order to challenge the Justice Department’s allegation that the documents retained at Mar-a-Lago contained national defense information, Smith argued the “great majority of the allegations” turn on unclassified evidence.
“That the classified materials at issue in this case were taken from the White House and retained at Mar-a-Lago is not in dispute; what is in dispute is how that occurred, why it occurred, what Trump knew, and what Trump intended in retaining them — all issues that the Government will prove at trial primarily with unclassified evidence,” prosecutors wrote.
In arguing for a change to the current schedule leading up to the trial, Trump’s lawyers told Cannon last week that it is “unworkable” in part because secure facilities where they can handle classified information have not yet been established. One member of the defense team, Chris Kise, has also not yet been fully cleared to review certain classified materials, the defense attorneys argued.
But prosecutors wrote that Kise received an interim security clearance in July and has been authorized to view roughly 2,100 pages of classified discovery since September 13, when the material was turned over. That information includes 16 of the 32 documents giving rise to the charges of unlawful retention of national defense information that Trump is facing, Smith’s team said.
Justice Department lawyers wrote that aside from Kise, four lawyers and one legal analyst working on the case for Trump have received final security clearances needed to review all 32 documents that led to charges.
Though prosecutors said they have provided all classified discovery as of Friday, they noted that a “small collection” of documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago are “so sensitive that they require special measures … including enhanced security protocols for their transport, review, discussion, and storage.”
The special counsel said it made a facility in Washington, D.C, available to Trump and his lawyers where they can review all evidence in the case, including the so-called special measures documents, and secure facilities in South Florida where the defense team can review and discuss all classified information in the case, including the highly sensitive documents, will be available by the end of the week.
In their filing, prosecutors also pushed back on a claim by Trump’s lawyers that they lack access to an approved computer to prepare classified discovery requests and other filings, calling it “misleading.” They argued that aside from the small subset of highly sensitive records, the defense team has had access to a classified laptop to address the remaining classified material.
“The defendants’ allegations regarding clearances and secure facilities vastly overstate the impact on their access to classified discovery and their ability to prepare for trial, and do not justify a continuance,” Smith and lawyers on his team wrote.
Nauta and De Oliveira joined Trump’s request to push back the trial date. Prosecutors charged Nauta with eight counts and De Oliveira with three counts for allegedly engaging in obstructive schemes to block the Justice Department’s investigation. The two pleadednot guilty.
De Oliveira is facing four charges related to accusations from the special counsel that he, along with Trump and aide Walt Nauta, tried to delete security camera footage from Mar-a-Lago that was sought by investigators. He made an initial appearance last month and was released on a $100,000 signature bond.
De Oliveira appeared alongside Florida-based lawyer Donald Murrell before U.S. Magistrate Judge Shaniek Mills Maynard for Tuesday’s brief arraignment. His two earlier proceedings were delayed because he hadn’t retained a lawyer in Florida as required.
While the last hearing for De Oliveira was postponed, both Trump and Nauta pleaded not guilty to additional charges stemming from Smith’s investigation into government records recovered from Mar-a-Lago. Nauta attended his second arraignment, while Trump waived his appearance.
Carlos De Oliveira, property manager of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, departs the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, Florida, on Aug. 10, 2023.
CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images
A federal grand jury returned the new indictment naming De Oliveira as the third co-defendant in the case against Trump and Nauta last month. He faces one count of altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing an object; one count of corruptly altering, destroying, mutilating or concealing a document, record or other object; one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice; and one count of making false statements and representations during a voluntary interview with federal investigators.
The updated indictment also included three new charges against Trump, who was already facing 37 felony counts stemming from his handling of sensitive government records. The new charges brought by the special counsel include two obstruction counts and one additional count of unlawful retention of national defense information, which relates to a Pentagon memo on Iran that Trump allegedly showed to a writer and publisher during a July 2021 meeting at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club.
Trump pleaded not guilty to the original 37 counts in June and has claimed Smith’s case is part of a partisan “witch hunt” designed to damage his candidacy for the White House in 2024. Nauta also pleaded not guilty to the six initial charges filed against him during his first arraignment last month.
The new allegations in the indictment involve security camera footage at Mar-a-Lago that was sought through a federal grand jury subpoena sent to a Trump lawyer in June 2022. Prosecutors allege that Trump, Nauta and De Oliveira requested footage to be deleted to prevent it from being turned over.
According to the indictment, De Oliveira told Mar-a-Lago’s director of information technology that “‘the boss’ wanted the server deleted.” When the unnamed employee responded that he didn’t believe he could do that, De Oliveira “insisted” that “‘the boss’ wanted the server deleted and asked, ‘What are we going to do?’” according to the updated indictment from the special counsel’s team.
Multiple sources told CBS News that the Mar-a-Lago IT worker is Yuscil Taveras. He has not been charged.
The FBI and grand jury received surveillance video from Mar-a-Lago in July 2022, which showed boxes being moved, according to the special counsel.
Federal prosecutors also claim De Oliveira lied to investigators during a voluntary interview at his house on Jan. 13 about the location and movement of boxes stored at Mar-a-Lago. De Oliveira told the FBI that he was not part of a group that helped unload and move boxes at the end of Trump’s presidency, and said he was not aware that boxes were being moved, according to the new indictment.
Smith’s team argues De Oliveira’s statements were “false,” because he “personally observed and helped move Trump’s boxes when they arrived” at Mar-a-Lago in January 2021.
Washington — In the months before former President Donald Trump’s trial in the classified documents case, his lawyers and special counsel Jack Smith’s team will clash behind closed doors over what government secrets can be made public.
Trump, who has pleaded not guilty, is charged with 32 counts of willful retention of national defense information, a violation of the Espionage Act. The charges are based on documents that the government says contain classified information ranging from top secret to secret, the two highest classification levels for national security information, according to a superseding indictment filed last month.
Trump’s lawyers indicated they will fight to disclose as much classified evidence as possible, saying in a July filing thatthe former president believes “there should simply be no ‘secret’ evidence, nor any facts concealed from public view.”
The back-and-forth between Trump and the government about what secret evidence can be used during the trial is regulated by a little-known law known as the Classified Information Procedures Act, or CIPA.
What is the Classified Information Procedures Act?
Congress enacted CIPA in 1980 to limit the practice of “graymail,” in which defendants threatened to disclose classified information at trial in an effort to get prosecutors to drop charges rather than risk the disclosure of government secrets. The bill was introduced by then-Sen. Joe Biden, who sat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The statute governs the litigation process between the government and defendant to determine how and if classified information can be used in criminal trials without being “unnecessarily” disclosed. It lays out a number of steps to help the government and defense narrow the classified information that will be used in court.
“CIPA doesn’t actually change the substantive law,” David Aaron, a former federal prosecutor who has litigated cases involving the Espionage Act, told CBS News. “It creates a procedural framework for judges to apply the substantive law basically on a different schedule, gives the government the opportunity to appeal and makes some processes mandatory.”
The law is supposed to balance the defendant’s constitutional right to a fair trial with the government’s interest in protecting its secrets, such as intelligence sources and methods. Under the Sixth Amendment, defendants typically have a right to know the evidence the government has against them, and they gain access to it through a process known as discovery. That can quickly become complicated when the case involves classified information.
Aaron said that CIPA is meant to resolve questions about classified material “fairly quickly and in advance to avoid surprise, which gives the government the opportunity to modify its approach, dismiss a count or the case, or seek other remedies so it’s not being put on the spot in the middle of a trial.”
The process laid out by CIPA is already underway in Trump’s case. Last month, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who is overseeing the case, set a variety of deadlines for proceedings pursuant to the law. Federal prosecutors have already submitted a request for a protective order pertaining to classified information, as allowed under the law, and Trump’s lawyers filed their response to the Justice Department’s motion on Wednesday.
Weighing the risks of classified information becoming public
Before a defendant is charged in a case involving classified materials, there are conversations within the government about the risks of that information becoming public at trial and whether to move forward with the case, experts said.
In the Trump case, the government found roughly 340 documents with classified markings at Mar-a-Lago after Trump left office in January 2021, according to the indictment. Trump was ultimately charged with keeping 32 of those documents illegally, an indication that the special counsel weighed the possibility of other sensitive information becoming public when deciding which charges to bring.
“You have to assume the government was selective when it decided what to charge,” Barry Pollack, a criminal defense attorney, told CBS News. “If there was something the government absolutely did not want to become part of the public domain, it probably didn’t charge a count related to that document.”
This image, contained in the indictment against former President Donald Trump, shows boxes of records in a storage room at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, that were photographed on Nov. 12, 2021.
Justice Department via AP
Sid Kamaraju, a former federal prosecutor who prosecuted the case against a former CIA software engineer for the largest theft of classified material in the agency’s history, said there’s usually an ongoing discussion between the Justice Department and intelligence community about what the spy agencies are comfortable disclosing. Though it’s unlikely the Justice Department would bring charges without the intelligence community’s sign-off, there can still be friction, he said.
“There certainly can be, and has been in cases in the past, tension between the intelligence community, who has a mission to not only gather intelligence but to do so in a way that’s most effective, and that usually requires secrecy, and the Department of Justice, which has to operate mostly in an open courtroom for the public to see,” Kamaraju told CBS News.
How long does the process take?
The process of determining what classified information can be used at trial can take months, depending on the volume and type of the material and the complexity of the case.
Defense attorneys must undergo background checks to get security clearances — if they don’t already have them — to view the classified information related to the case. Trump’s lawyers, Todd Blanche and Chris Kise, told the court in July they completed the steps needed to obtain their clearances.
The prosecution then allows the defense team to see the classified information through the pre-trial discovery process. In Trump’s case, the government said the defense can view the Mar-a-Lago documents and witness statements containing classified information in a sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF, at the federal courthouse in Miami.
But the law also gives the government an opportunity to limit the classified materials it turns over to the defense during the discovery process. Federal prosecutors can argue to the judge that certain information is not “relevant and helpful” to the defense and therefore shouldn’t be shared. Prosecutors can ask to delete specific classified information from documents, substitute a summary of the information in a classified document or craft a statement with the relevant facts the classified information would intend to prove.
“If the government wants to withhold information from the defense because it’s too sensitive, it has to argue that information is not relevant and helpful to the defense,” Aaron said.
It’s unclear whether the special counsel team will seek to limit the sensitive materials it provides Trump’s attorneys. If it chooses to disclose all the information, “the government is stepping on the gas here,” Aaron said.
The special counsel has until Oct. 10 to file a motion to limit discovery. Cannon set a hearing on the request for Oct. 17 if one is needed.
Prosecutors said in a July filing that its first tranche of classified discovery material will include “all documents” bearing classification markings “to which counsel’s interim clearances will permit them access.” They said this group of documents “represents the large majority of the classified records from Mar-a-Lago.”
Then the defense team must tell prosecutors what classified information it wants to use as evidence at trial,which the prosecution can challenge. The judge would then make a decision about what classified evidence can be admitted.
“The benefit of CIPA here is that these decisions get made before trial starts,” said Aaron, who prosecuted the Espionage Act case against Reality Winner, a National Security Agency contractor who pleaded guilty to mailing a classified report to a news outlet. “The whole idea is to avoid surprise at trial.”
But Pollack, the criminal defense attorney, said the law’s requirement that the defense notify the government and the court of the classified information it intends to disclose to jurors during the trial presents challenges, since it effectively requires the defense team to reveal its strategy ahead of time.
“The defense has the right not to have to air its defense in advance and in a CIPA case, what happens is the defense largely loses the one and only advantage it typically has to combat all of those imbalances of power between the defense and the government,” he said. “It does tip the scale further in the government’s direction.”
Can a judge require the government to disclose classified information?
The government has several options if the judge decides that revealingclassified information during a trial is necessary for a defendant to argue their case. The government can declassify it or make the argument that disclosing the entirety of the document to the public could compromise sensitive sources and methods, and thus ask for a smaller portion or a summary of the information to be revealed.
“There can be some negotiation around that,” Seth DuCharme, a former federal prosecutor, told CBS News. “But ultimately, if the court determines that some or all of the classified information that the defense has identified [is] material to the defense, the court can tell the government, ‘Look, it’s classified. You can declassify it. You can do whatever you want. I’m just telling you, if they can’t use it, in my opinion, they’re not getting a fair trial. And I have very few remedies here. I can’t compel you to declassify it. The only thing I can really do is dismiss your indictment because, in my view, you’re not complying with your discovery obligations.’”
Short of dismissing the indictment, the judge could tell the prosecution to narrow its allegations, which would allow the government to avoid broader discovery obligations, DuCharme said. Both he and Kamaraju said they never had a case where the government dropped charges instead of disclosing classified information.
CIPA also allows the Justice Department to immediately appeal a judge’s decision on disclosing classified information, while defendants can only appeal if they’re convicted.
“In cases involving these kinds of charges it’s quite normal for there to be a lot of litigation over the disclosure of classified information and that often does result in the government having to turn over something,” Kamaraju said.
Pollack said CIPA’s substitution or summary process allows the court to satisfy competing concerns of allowing the defense to use part of a document that is “legitimately necessary,” while protecting from public disclosure information that could damage national security.
“CIPA is a good-faith effort to find a middle ground, but it has the collateral impossible unintended consequence of disrupting that very delicate, balanced scale between the government and the defense in how they are able to litigate a criminal case and forces the defense to show its cards to the other side before you get to trial,” he said. “The government has every advantage it always has, but the defense is largely disarmed.”
As former President Donald Trump has escalated his rhetoric following his arraignment this week on federal charges that he attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 election, the Justice Department has asked a judge to issue a protective order limiting what Trump can say publicly about the proceedings. Christina Ruffini has the latest.
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Alina Habba, a legal spokesperson for Donald Trump, on Sunday called the former president “the most ethical American I know,” days after he was charged with additional federal crimes for his alleged mishandling of classified documents after departing the White House.
In an interview with “Fox News Sunday,” Habba decried last week’s superseding indictment in the case being prosecuted by special counsel Jack Smith as “election interference.”
“This is what happens when you’re winning in the polls and the Democrats can’t win,” she said, echoing Trump’s persecution claims.
Smith last week brought three new felony charges against the former president in the classified documents probe, including an allegation that Trump ordered Mar-a-Lago surveillance video deleted “to prevent the footage from being provided to a federal grand jury.”
But Habba disputed the charge.
“No tapes were deleted. He turned them over,” Habba said. “He cooperated as he always does.”
She continued: “If President Trump didn’t want something turned over I assure you that is something that could have been done. But he never would act like that. He’s the most ethical American I know.”
Twice-indicted Trump is bracing for more federal criminal charges over his role in efforts to undo the 2020 presidential election, and from the Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ probe over attempts to subvert Joe Biden’s win in Georgia.
He also has been indicted in New York over his role in a hush money payment scheme involving adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
Earlier this month, Habba was dropped from Trump’s legal defense team and assumed the role of legal spokesperson and general counsel for his Save America PAC, which reportedly has spent $40 million bankrolling Trump’s legal expenses in the first half of 2023.
She previously testified before the grand jury probing Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents.
Former President Donald Trump is back on the campaign trail for the first time since he was hit with three new federal charges. The allegations point to a pattern of obstruction of justice related to classified documents at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago. Christina Ruffini has more.
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A former Trump administration official stressed the critical importance of protecting classified documents amid new charges against former President Donald Trump alleging he mishandled secret material after leaving office.
Trump was charged Thursday with three additional felony counts in the Justice Department’s probe, adding to the 37 he was already facing. Two new charges stem from alleged efforts to obstruct the investigation, including by ordering the deletion of incriminating security camera footage. A third charge is related to previously reported audio of Trump discussing a sensitive military document about possible attacks on Iran.
“Everybody assumed that, knew that, the president was aware of the fact that classification mattered,” Dan Coats, who served as director of national intelligence from 2017 to 2019, said in an interview on CNN Thursday.
“It is sacrosanct, really,” he continued. “A lot of times people say, well, what’s the big deal about all of this? If you walk into the lobby of the CIA, and look to the right wall, you’ll see a bunch of stars.”
Those stars memorialize officers who die in the line of duty, Coats said, “because somebody’s got their names out, maybe on a classified document.”
Dan Coats served in the Trump administration between 2017 and 2019.
He also noted that millions of dollars are spent on intelligence-gathering.
“If that’s breached because somebody gets a classified document floating around … we lose that information that we are grabbing,” he said.
“So it’s more than just a bunch of papers,” he added. “Lives can be lost.”
Coats said intelligence agency employees are reminded every day to properly protect classified documents, because “there are deadly consequences.”
Federal prosecutors allege Trump put national security at risk by improperly storing boxes of classified information at his Mar-a-Lago resort, defying attempts to retrieve them and obstructing the investigation.
He is also accused of showing classified documents to others on two occasions in 2021. On one of those occasions, at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club, Trump allegedly showed a document and described a classified “plan of attack” at a meeting with two aides and people working on a book, none of whom had clearance.
In an audio recording of that conversation, Trump bragged that he had a “highly confidential” document from the Department of Defense that he never declassified.
Trump has claimed that he was showing newspaper clippings, not a classified document, and that his boasts were “just bravado.”
Former President Donald Trump was indicted Thursday on three new charges in the investigation into his handling of classified documents after leaving office, including a count of corruptly altering, destroying, mutilating or concealing a document. A third defendant was also named in the case, Carlos De Oliveira, a Mar-a-Lago property manager. Robert Costa has the latest.
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Former President Donald Trump’s trial over his alleged mishandling of classified documents will begin on May 20, 2024, Judge Aileen Cannon said in an order Friday. CBS News political director Fin Gomez has more.
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John Dickerson reports on Donald Trump facing another potential indictment, an American soldier detained in North Korea, and an update on the murder case of Tupac Shakur.
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Former President Donald Trump has received a target letter from special counsel Jack Smith regarding the investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The letter could signal an indictment is forthcoming. Robert Costa reports.
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