The Classified Documents Case Goes Off The Rails

The DOJ is exposed for threatening a defense attorney, possibly falsifying & tampering with evidence, and lying to the court.

Tuesday, May 7th, Judge Cannon put an indefinite hold on the Classified Documents case in Florida after allegations that the DOJ had tampered with evidence were brought to light.

From the beginning, this was the case that seemed to have the best chance of actually landing the former president in a whole heap of trouble, especially early on, when audio leaked of Trump supposedly waving around a classified document. It has been hard to keep track of what was happening in the case because so much of it revolves around classified documents that were kept sealed. The media has done their best to paint Judge Cannon, who is a Trump appointee, as being biased and in over her pretty little head, even though she has ruled in favor of the Special Counsel's office more often.

All of that has changed. Judge Cannon recently unsealed most of the documents in the case as the trial date was approaching. The newly unredacted information has been illuminating. For instance, in a filing dated August 18, 2023, Walt Nauta’s lawyer, Stanley Woodward, alerted the court that, during the DC grand jury investigation, DOJ Lawyer Bratt had issued a thinly veiled threat to Woodward’s career unless he managed to get his client to flip on Trump.

Back in January, Nauta and De Oliviera’s lawyers discovered, via a FOIA request, that NARA had been working with the DOJ and the White House counsel long before the March 2022 date stated in the indictment. Julie Kelly’s report on the newly unredacted exhibits shows that the NARA and DOJ were working together throughout 2021 and were in regular contact with the Biden White House Counsel, Johnathan Su. Julie’s article over at Real Clear Investigations is well worth the read.

However, the most significant issue that has come to light in recent days is the potential evidence tampering by the DOJ. The three defendants were ordered in April to tell the court which classified docs they needed for their respective defenses by May 9. On May 2, Nauta’s lawyer filed a request to extend the deadline and alerted the court to an issue with boxes. Nauta has been charged with concealing classified documents because he moved a bunch of the boxes for Trump prior to the lawyer’s search. It is vital to Nauta’s defense to know exactly which documents came from which box, where in the box they were, and how they were marked. Unfortunately, it would appear that the DOJ has mixed up the order of documents in the boxes. Add in all the restrictions on what material can be viewed inside and outside the SCIF, and it’s become nearly impossible for Nauta’s attorney to figure out what goes where and whether their client actually had anything to do with some of the boxes in question.

The DOJ’s response to the questions and allegations raised by Nauta was that even though they had told the judge everything was just how they found it, they really can’t guarantee that it is. But, they say, the document order in the box doesn’t really matter, and the defense attorneys waited too long to go through the boxes, so meh.

This response also revealed that the agents conducting the raid on Mar-a-Lago did not bother to maintain the order of the boxes when they initially rifled through them. Then, they removed the sensitive material from the boxes and replaced each one with an appropriate cover sheet. However, the FBI ran out of cover sheets during the raid, so they just used notebook paper with notes written on it as placeholders during the raid and replaced them with the proper cover sheets later. The contents of each box were then scanned. The DOJ then admits, in a footnote, that they lied to the court when they assured the judge that the boxes were intact exactly as they had been when they were seized.

One of the problems is that not all of the handwritten placeholders were removed, and the contents don’t line up with the proper order in the scans. In at least one case, there is a scan of a handwritten placeholder for a 1-page document that says “Secret” in the box where there should be a 1-page “Confidential” document. The handwritten placeholder is still in the box, as is the Confidential placeholder, which is in the wrong place in the box. They are both labeled with the same codes. So, the question is, which placeholder is correct? Which location in the box is correct? No one knows anymore.

These new revelations have also led to speculation that the famous photo of classified documents spread out across the floor in Mar-a-Lago was staged. If it were, that would mean the FBI and DOJ have potentially falsified evidence.

Trump’s legal team has responded, absolutely spanking the Special Counsel for not disclosing much of this information earlier. Trump accused the SC of being “dismissive and condescending” in their response to the serious issues raised by Nauta’s lawyer.

“Moreover, the May 3, 2024, submission by the Special Counsel’s Office contains several vague assertions that only raise more questions regarding the Office’s failure to maintain the integrity of the evidence in the boxes. For example, the Office indicated for the first time that the “filter team” was “not focused on maintaining the sequence of documents within each box.” ECF 522 at 6. That concession alone implicates every box at issue, as well as the “scans.” Id. at 8. The gravity of these issues is illustrated by the fact that the Office now claims that the “best evidence available” of the boxes’ contents are scans prepared by “an outside vendor” in connection with a civil case that lacked the constitutional, statutory, and ethical safeguards that guide discovery obligations in this criminal case. Id. at 7, 8.

Regarding the so-called “cover sheets” that the prosecution team used as replacements for allegedly classified documents in the boxes, the Special Counsel’s Office wrote that the FBI “generally” had “replaced the handwritten sheets with classified cover sheets annotated with the index code.” ECF No. 522 at 7. But the Office did not explain why they could not offer a precise, categorical representation about the process that was used instead of a “general” one. The Office also admitted that in “many but not all instances, the FBI was able to determine which document with classification markings corresponded to a particular placeholder sheet.” Id. (emphasis added). This further suggests that even if the scans are the “best evidence available,” they are not a reliable record of the boxes’ contents. The “not all” caveat is, however, consistent with the recent and inexplicable disclosure that the “filter team” was “not focused” on the order of documents in the boxes that are at the heart of this case.”

Trump rightfully points out that these brand-new disclosures “raise questions about the investigation and the handling of evidence that must be addressed before the matter proceeds.”

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Lorraine Yuriar is a wife, mother, and lifelong conservative, currently stuck in a very blue state.