Donald Trump is mad that the FBI photographed his stolen classified documents

Yesterday, we discussed the FBI’s filing, released late Tuesday, of what they found in the August raid of Mar-a-Lago. Basically, they found over 100 highly classified documents, many of them the highest security clearance, hidden all around MAL. The FBI also released one photo of the documents – FBI agents had clearly discovered top-secret documents stashed away somewhere in MAL, so they removed the documents, spread them out on the ugly carpet and documented them as evidence by taking photos. This documentation of evidence is what Donald Trump is stuck on. He’s now arguing “hey, I hid those documents, I didn’t leave them out on the carpet!” Insane. He’s also arguing that all of the top-secret documents he squirreled away were his “presidential records.”

Former President Donald Trump argued in a court filing Wednesday that the National Archives should have expected to find classified material among the 15 boxes Trump turned over in January from Mar-a-Lago because they were presidential records.

The filing, his closing written legal argument before a critical hearing Thursday, acknowledged that classified material was found at Mar-a-Lago, but argued that it should not have been cause for alarm — and should not have led to the search of Trump’s Florida residence earlier this month.

Painting the probe as politically charged given Trump’s potential run as a candidate 2024, he scoffed at the idea that the DOJ could be “entrusted with the responsibility of evaluating its unjustified pursuit of criminalizing a former President’s possession of personal and Presidential records in a secure setting.”

In posts on his social media platform Truth Social on Wednesday, Trump claimed that he had declassified all of the documents in the photo.

“Terrible the way the FBI, during the Raid of Mar-a-Lago, threw documents haphazardly all over the floor (perhaps pretending it was me that did it!),” Trump wrote, “and then started taking pictures of them for the public to see. Thought they wanted them kept Secret? Lucky I Declassified!”

[From CNN]

An ex-president can’t just grab all of these top-secret documents on his way out the door and claim their “presidential records.” That’s not a thing. No ex-president does that. No ex-president lies his face off when the FBI gives him multiple opportunities to merely hand over the documents either. As for potential charges, the Department of Justice will likely not bring charges until after the midterms:

The Justice Department will likely wait until after November’s midterm elections to bring charges against Donald Trump if they decide the former president broke the law, according to a new report. In the wake of the FBI leading a raid at his Mar-a-Lago home earlier this month, the former president could face potential prosecution for his handling of classified documents, says Bloomberg. Though, people familiar with the situation told the publication that federal prosecutors are unlikely to charge Mr Trump with any crime close to election day on 8 November.

While Mr Trump is expected to announce a third presidential run in 2024, CNN notes that his legal issues may see him postpone that announcement.

“Everyone was operating under the assumption that shortly after Labor Day would be the best possible time to launch, but that has changed and he’s being told to deal with the FBI stuff first,” a Trump adviser told the network.

In Bloomberg’s report, they note that it had been a long-standing DOJ policy that prosecutors would not file charges or take major investigative action that would impact a candidate, party, or election within 60 days of voters going to the polls. That would put the cut-off point at 10 September, which one source told the outlet makes it unlikely anything will be announced before the elections.

[From The Independent]

Yes, the famous DOJ policy to not announce investigations or charges against political candidates right before an election. Tell that to James Comey. As much as I want to see Trump frog-marched in handcuffs immediately, I know it will probably be months before that happens, if it happens at all.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

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