Politics - News Analysis

BOMBSHELL: DOJ Reveals More Classified Document May Be Missing in Trump Investigation

It’s now been revealed that even after the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald Trump and his team STILL may not have returned all the top-secret records removed from the White House at the end of his presidency, U.S. prosecutors warned on Thursday, describing this as a potential national security risk that needs investigation, Reuters reports.

This revelation became apparent in a Justice Department court filing that requested U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to allow the agency to continue investigating roughly 100 classified records the FBI seized in its raid of Trump’s Palm Beach home while it probes whether classified documents were illegally removed from the White House and then improperly stored at his residence.

Trump continues to be under investigation for keeping government records, some of which were marked highly classified at his residence when he left office in January 2021.

Those 100 documents are a mere fraction of the more than 11,000 records and photographs seized by the FBI, which the government has said Trump can review because they aren’t classified.

“This motion is limited to … the seized classified records because those aspects of the order will cause the most immediate harms to the government and the public,” the DOJ said in the filing.

Prosecutors are also asking Cannon not to allow an independent arbiter (read “special master”) to review classified information retrieved from Trump’s residence.

Trump, taking to his Truth Social platform called the request a waste of money.

But that may definitely not be true because the DOJ suggested Thursday there may be additional classified documents that were removed from the White House when Trump left office — records that investigators have not yet found. This news comes a week or so after the DOJ released a detailed list of property seized Mar-a-Lago. And the really bad news here is that the FBI discovered 48 empty folders that were all marked classified. Also found: another 42 folders that indicated they should be returned to a staff secretary or military aide.

This has left legal experts understandably worried and confused about why the folders were empty, while at the same time it wasn’t clear if the records were missing.

“Without a stay, the government and the public will also suffer irreparable harm from the undue delay to the criminal investigation,” prosecutors wrote, per Reuters.

“The injunction against using classified records in the criminal investigation could impede efforts to identify the existence of any classified records that are not being properly stored — which itself presents the potential for ongoing risk to national security,” prosecutors noted.

Prosecutors have asked the judge to rule on this by September 15, and if she declines their request, they will file an appeal to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. It’s hard to say how this will turn out since six of the 11 active judges are Trump appointees.

Cannon, who is also a Trump appointee issued an order Thursday to Trump’s attorneys, giving them until Monday morning to respond to the DOJ’s request. She also granted Trump a special master, over the objections of prosecutors. On Monday, she also ordered prosecutors to pause their reviews of the 11,000 records while a special master is appointed to review the documents.

The DOJ has said it will provide a list of potential candidates for a special master in a joint filing alongside Trump’s lawyers, per Cannon’s request.

It’s anyone’s guess how this looming mess will turn out, but if you want to know more, I suggest you review Reuters’ story. It has far more information since my space here is limited.

meet the author

Megan has lived in California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida and she currently lives in Central America. Living in these places has informed her writing on politics, science, and history. She is currently owned by 15 cats and 3 dogs and regularly owns Trump supporters when she has the opportunity. She can be found on Twitter at https://twitter.com/GaiaLibra and Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/politicalsaurus

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