The Justice Department filed a sworn affidavit attesting to a “diligent search” of Mar-a-Lago weeks before investigators found up a cache of sensitive data, raising questions about the legal team former President Donald Trump has gathered to fight off an FBI obstruction inquiry.
According to the Justice Department’s most recent filing in the case, the president’s attorney was there when FBI agents and a DOJ lawyer visited Mar-a-Lago on June 3 to look for classified information.
Christina Bobb, a Trump attorney, was there at Mar-a-Lago on August 8 when the FBI raided.
She reportedly signed a declaration attesting to a “diligent hunt” for secret government papers, according to The New York Times.
Former OAN anchor Bobb criticised the FBI after the raid in August, even saying she believed they would “make anything up and come up with whatever they want.”
There’s really nothing there, she added while describing Mar-a-Lago.
The petition, which states that investigators seized 33 boxes containing “over a hundred classified data,” refutes that claim.
After many weeks of back and forth, and as it has now been disclosed by a lawsuit, a subpoena for the documents, came that June visit.
Following months of demands from the National Archives, Trump returned 15 crates of documents.
The government adds that neither the attorney representing Trump nor the custodian of his archives “made that the former president had declassified the documents or asserted any claim of executive privilege” while delivering the materials.
Both of these defences are now being made by Trump and his legal staff. Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday, “Luckily I declassified!”
A former OAN host, Bobb
Prior to working for Trump, she was employed by OAN.
The DOJ published a picture of the very sensitive information it found while searching Mar-a-Lago.
“On behalf of the Office of Donald J. Trump,” the letter was certified.
The search of the exclusive club where Trump resides has angered Trump.
Even the lawyer’s behaviour is described in the lawsuit, which claims that “counsel handled them in a way that indicated counsel thought the papers were classified.”
The manufacturing of the document comprised a sizable envelope that was “double-wrapped in tape.”
According to The Times, the statement that Bobb signed during the FBI’s visit in June was written by another Trump attorney, Evan Cocoran, who was there.
I am authorised to certify the following on behalf of the Office of Donald J. Trump based on the information that has been given to me: Any and all responsive documents are attached to this certification, and no copy, written notation, or reproduction of any kind was kept with regard to any responsive document.
“A diligent search was conducted of the boxes that were moved from the White House to Florida.” “This search was conducted after receipt of the subpoena.”
The letter ends with the words, “I swear or confirm that the foregoing assertions.” It was included in the submission by DOJ.
According to Andrew Weissmann, a former Robert Mueller prosecutor, “Trump and two of his lawyers are in huge peril for obstruction of justice, and evidence of Trump knowing became stronger.”
He anticipated that prosecutors may attempt to subpoena the attorneys to inquire as to whether Trump approved the remark.
After the raid, Bobb told OAN that “nothing” was found and that she was “a little bit perplexed as to why they would do such a severe thing, so disrespectful and so dishonourable, other than the fact that it’s a political weapon.”
She said she was unable to see the search but claimed FBI agents “just fabricate things.”
We have been extremely forthcoming with the Biden administration and the DOJ and given over everything that we uncovered, that we had, she said in a statement to Fox News on August 12.
The 2020 election audit conducted by the Arizona Senate, which finally confirmed Joe Biden’s victory in the state, was also pushed by Bobb.
The petition also shows that the government is looking into possible obstruction of justice, as it claims that after being served with a subpoena, “government records were likely hidden and taken” from a storage area inside the president’s exclusive club.
According to the report, during the June visit, one of the attorneys “explicitly prohibited government personnel from opening or looking inside” boxes in the storage room in addition to what had been permitted, “giving no opportunity for the government to confirm that no documents with classification markings remained.”
It was disclosed that Trump is expanding his legal staff by hiring Chris Kise, a former Florida solicitor general, on Tuesday, the day the government filed its paperwork.
During his transition, Kise provided advice to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a function he previously performed for former Governor Rick Scott.
The “political knife combatant” reputation of Kise was noted by NBC.
He could have his hands full now that the Justice Department has made more of its secrets public by obtaining special permission to release a 36-page brief that attorneys dropped just before Tuesday’s midnight deadline.
Jim Trusty, a lawyer who has advised Trump and presented his position on television, reduced the preservation of government-owned information on Monday night.
He cited the government’s request to upgrade the lock on a storage room where papers were being kept, which was made during a visit in June and disclosed in correspondence that was released by another court.
Trusty told Fox News that there was a “chronology of collaboration” and that it revealed a “accommodating” administration.
Five days later, the Department of Justice offered the following piece of advice: “Hey, please lock the door.”
That, in my opinion, is not the subject of a critical nuclear espionage inquiry. That would be the content of a late library book.
The New York Times stated that Trump recruited Trusty to his staff after seeing him on television.