Special counsel defends investigators’ handling of Mar-a-Lago documents ‘randomly’ kept by Trump

CNN
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Prosecutors accompanied by special counsel Jack Smith, in a filing Monday evening, pushed back against former President Donald Trump’s efforts to dismiss the classified documents case against him over how documents found in boxes during from the FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago in 2022 have been processed by investigators.

Prosecutors, with several never-before-seen images and a 30-page filing, detailed the search process and ridiculed Trump’s legal arguments.

“Trump personally chose to store documents containing some of the nation’s best-kept secrets in cardboard boxes,” prosecutors wrote, “along with a collection of other personally chosen memorabilia of varying sizes and shapes, dating from his presidency – journals, thank-you notes, Christmas gifts. ornaments, magazines, clothing and photographs of himself and others.

Trump’s latest attempt to dismiss the case came after prosecutors acknowledged that some of the documents fell out of order in their individual boxes after being seized by the government.

Trump’s lawyers have previously argued that because the order of the contents in the boxes was changed, it impacted their ability to build a defense around when certain classified documents were placed in each box, being given where they were inside Mar-a-Lago and what documents — including news articles — were nearby.

The new dossier from Smith’s team details in detail how the search was conducted, the protocols FBI agents followed, how certain documents were taken out of the boxes and by whom.

Prosecutors highlighted how investigators found boxes with contents spilled on the floor, which they also illustrated with photos taken by investigators and one of Trump’s co-defendants.

“Against this backdrop of the haphazard manner in which Trump chose to maintain his boxes, Trump claims that the precise order of the contents “was essential to his defense,” prosecutors said, ridiculing the argument.

To support their arguments, prosecutors attached several new photos of the boxes, some of which were taken during the search. Two photos were taken by Walt Nauta, Trump’s co-defendant and valet, in December 2021, when he was moving boxes around Trump’s residence for examination and found that some of the boxes had fallen. Other photos were taken during the search and prosecutors included a few photos to show the clippings, personal effects and memorabilia found mixed with sensitive government documents.

Prosecutors also claim that “the integrity of each container in which the evidence was found, i.e., box-to-box integrity” was preserved.

“Nothing was lost, let alone destroyed, and there was no bad faith,” they added.

To push back against defense attorneys’ contention that internal FBI emails suggested agents had long known there was a problem with how the boxes were seized, prosecutors revealed what the emails were about actually: that a witness had discovered additional classified documents at Mar-a-Lago the day after the August 2022 search.

Prosecutors argued that Trump’s previous remarks about the documents — including that he had designated them as his personal documents and declassified them — contradicted the defense that the order of the documents would help prove he was unaware the contents of the boxes.

“The Court should view Trump’s newly invented explanations and his petition for what they are: his latest unfounded accusations against law enforcement professionals doing their jobs,” they wrote.