Posted on 09/06/2023 11:34:28 AM PDT by thegagline
In May of last year, shortly after the Justice Department issued a subpoena to former President Donald Trump for all classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Trump’s then-lead attorney on the matter, Evan Corcoran, warned the former president in person, at Mar-a-Lago, that not only did Trump have to fully comply with the subpoena, but that the FBI might search the estate if he didn’t, according to Corcoran’s audio notes following the conversation.
Only minutes later, during a pool-side chat away from Trump, Corcoran got his own warning from another Trump attorney: If you push Trump to comply with the subpoena, “he’s just going to go ballistic,” Corcoran recalled.
Corcoran’s recollections, captured in a series of voice memos he made on his phone the next day, help illuminate Trump’s alleged efforts to defy a federal grand jury subpoena, and appear to shed more light on his frame of mind when he allegedly launched what prosecutors say was a criminal conspiracy to hide classified documents from both the FBI and Corcoran, his own attorney.
*** The recordings, which have become a key piece of evidence in special counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents case against Trump, contain information that was later described in Smith’s publicly released indictment and in media reports — but many of the details in them have never been made public.
ABC News has reviewed copies of transcripts of the recordings, which appear to show the way Trump allegedly deceived his own attorney, and how classified documents, according to prosecutors, ended up at Mar-a-Lago in the first place.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung, responding to the development, told ABC News, “The attorney-client privilege is one of the oldest and most fundamental principles in our legal system, and its primary purpose is to promote the rule of law. Whether attorneys’ notes are detailed or not makes no difference — these notes reflect the legal opinions and thoughts of the lawyer, not the client.” *** Corcoran and another Trump attorney, Jennifer Little, flew to Florida to meet with Trump. “The next step was to speak with the former president about complying with that subpoena,” Corcoran recalled in a voice memo the next day.
But while sitting together in Trump’s office, in front of a Norman Rockwell-style painting depicting Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton and Trump playing poker, Trump, according to Corcoran’s notes, wanted to discuss something else first: how he was being unfairly targeted.
As Corcoran later recalled in his recordings, Trump continuously wandered off to topics unrelated to the subpoena — Hillary Clinton, “the great things” he’s done for the country, and his big lead in the polls in the run-up to the 2024 Republican presidential primary race that Trump would officially join in November. But Corcoran and Little “kept returning to the boxes,” according to the transcripts.
Corcoran wanted Trump to understand “we were there to discuss responding to the subpoena,” Corcoran said in the memos. *** As Corcoran described it in his recordings, he explained to Trump during that meeting what the former president was facing. “We’ve got a grand jury subpoena and the alternative is if you don’t comply with the grand jury subpoena you could be held in contempt,” Corcoran recalled telling Trump.
Trump responded with a line included in the indictment against him, asking, “what happens if we just don’t respond at all or don’t play ball with them?”
The transcripts reviewed by ABC News reveal what Corcoran says he then told Trump. “Well, there’s a prospect that they could go to a judge and get a search warrant, and that they could arrive here,” Corcoran recalled warning the former president as they sat at Mar-a-Lago.
Still, as depicted in Corcoran’s recordings and in the public indictment, Trump repeatedly suggested it might be better if they refused to cooperate.
The indictment says that although Corcoran — who ABC News believes to be “Attorney 1” in the indictment — and Little — believed to be “Attorney 2” — “told Trump that they needed to search for documents that would be responsive to the subpoena and provide a certification that there had been compliance with the subpoena,” Trump still insisted to them, “I don’t want anybody looking through my boxes,” and, “Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?”
And in a private, pool-side conversation during a break at Mar-a-Lago that day, according to Corcoran’s recordings, Little relayed to him what she was told herself by two other Trump attorneys: that Trump would “go ballistic” over complying with the subpoena — “that there’s no way he’s going to agree to anything, and that he was going to deny that there were any more boxes at all,” Corcoran recalled on his recordings.
In the indictment, prosecutors allege Trump did something just like that.
The indictment describes how, before the May 23 meeting with Corcoran at Mar-a-Lago ended, Trump “confirmed” a plan for Corcoran to return to Mar-a-Lago two weeks later to search for any classified documents. And, according to the indictment, Corcoran “made it clear to Trump” that he would conduct that search in a basement storage room.
Corcoran’s recordings suggest he was told by others that the only location at Mar-a-Lago that contained classified documents was the basement storage room. “I’ve got boxes in my basement that I really wouldn’t want you to go through,” Corcoran recalled Trump telling him.
And sources told ABC News that, when speaking to investigators, Corcoran explained that he checked with many people about where classified documents could be found, and everyone, including Trump, created the impression that any classified documents would be in the boxes in the storage room.
*** Over the next two weeks, before Corcoran returned to Mar-a-Lago to search for classified documents in the storage room, Trump’s two co-defendants in the documents case, Mar-a-Lago staffers Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, allegedly removed dozens of boxes from the storage room — all “at Trump’s direction” and with the goal “that many boxes were not searched and many documents responsive to the May 11 Subpoena could not be found,” according to the indictment.
Corcoran ultimately found 38 classified documents in the boxes that remained in the storage room, and he handed them over to the FBI, along with a certification — allegedly endorsed by Trump — that the former president had now fully complied with the subpoena.
But when FBI agents searched Mar-a-Lago three months later, they found 102 more classified documents in Trump’s office and elsewhere.
Despite Corcoran warning him months earlier, according to the recordings, that the FBI might show up at Mar-a-Lago if he didn’t fully comply with the subpoena, Trump called the FBI move a “shocking BREAK-IN,” with “no way to justify” it, in posts on his social media platform.
According to the indictment, Trump “knowingly” deceived the FBI and his own attorney, providing “just some of the documents called for by the grand jury subpoena, while claiming that he was cooperating fully.”
*** The transcripts of Corcoran’s recordings also appear to offer new insight into how classified documents ended up in boxes at Mar-a-Lago in the first place, and whether Trump truly believed those documents had been declassified.
As Trump described it to Corcoran according to the transcripts, he had a nightly practice while still in the White House: He would bring newspaper articles, photos and notes to his bedroom so he could review them.
He would also bring classified documents, according to Corcoran.
“That’s the only time I could read something, and I had to read them so I could be ready for calls or meetings the next day,” Trump told Corcoran, according to Corcoran’s recordings.
However, in their meeting, Trump insisted to Corcoran that he made clear to those around him that “anything that comes into the residence should be declassified,” the transcript reads.
“I don’t know what was done,” Corcoran recalled Trump telling him. “I don’t know how they were marked. But that was my position.”
Those comments from Trump, as recalled by Corcoran, suggest Trump understood that — despite subsequent public claims to the contrary — classified documents were not declassified simply by bringing them to the residence.
As for how classified documents ended up in boxes, Trump “had a lot of boxes” in his bedroom, and when he was done reading a newspaper article or a classified document, he’d “throw them” into one of the boxes, according to Corcoran.
So when it came time for Trump to leave the White House in January 2021, many of those boxes from the bedroom ended up at Mar-a-Lago in the storage room.
Corcoran provided special counsel Smith’s team with his recordings after, as previously reported by ABC News, the now-former chief judge of the federal court in Washington ordered him to do so, finding that Smith’s office had made a “prima facie showing that the former president had committed criminal violations” by deliberately misleading his attorneys about his handling of classified materials, sources familiar with the matter said at the time.
As a result of that legal fight, Corcoran recused himself from continuing to represent Trump in the documents case. But when Trump was arraigned in Washington on federal charges accusing him of trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election, Corcoran attended the hearing and sat in the courtroom behind Trump.
The post Trump was warned FBI could raid Mar-a-Lago, according to attorney’s voice memos appeared first on ABC News.
“Do you think he committed a crime? What law, if any did he break?”
Yes, conspiracy and obstruction of the Grand Jury subpoena. Which was idiotic, because the actual possession of documents was either legal, or trivial. This was a nothing case, that would have helped him, until he went rogue on his lawyers and started hiding documents.
You have to understand, even if you think he declassified the documents, and had the right to take them, once they were subpoenaed, he had to give them to the Grand Jury.
What’s simply amazing is that any documents at all of any possible classification markers ended up at his Florida home without an appropriate paper trail. He should’ve found some federal contractor that has a SCIF and plenty of extra space in the SCIF for storing boxes/documents and then create a project code for Analysts with a security clearance to go through those documents to document what’s been unclassified and what needs to go to other government agencies, like the Archives. These Analysts would report to a Program Manager that also works for this federal contractor and charge their time to this project code, along with the SCIF/storage space/time/processing for the boxes/documents (including separate storage for items cleared as declassified). In addition, they should have some attorney who is on retainer to oversee that the Program Manager did proper supervision of the process. And the Program Manager should try to lawfully get the Archives and other government agencies to pay for the project code costs. Then what Trump would’ve ended up with was shipment of boxes to his home where all of the federal procedures for declassification would’ve been verified and all claims on such documents by the Archives and other agencies would’ve had due process rights respected. And even then he should’ve had his own admin staff/lawyer doing careful supervision to make sure he never had to handle/deal with any box/document that didn’t have the paper trail in place.
If Trump would’ve done this then any potential litigation over all this would’ve started off with the federal contractor & their procedures/processes. Any allegations against Trump would’ve had to first go through that federal contractor who was hired to review the declassifications process of taking boxes/documents out of the White House & EOP -> Trump Home & they’d have an insurmountable firewall protecting Trump from allegations. He initially ran for President on the claim that he couldn’t be bought like so many other candidates because he was rich. Well, if he had any decent management skills then he would’ve been able to handle all this for well less than 1 million USD. Any capable executive knows that the time to start planning your post-transition life when you get out of a Role/Position starts well before you even start that Role/Position. So, he clearly failed on his paperwork management processes from the time of his Presidential Transition team getting underway in late 2016 through his return to private life in early 2021.
Those still supporting Trump have got to see this and realize how he blew this & how he should’ve handled it different. If they don’t understand this then they aren’t doing the Trump campaign any favors because they’re convincing everyone else that he’s just not up to being President again 2025-2029.
My point is that any boxes/documents he identified as President that should be ending up Declassified -> Mara Lago should’ve been identified and processed for separate storage at the White House & once declassified to then be shipped to Mara Lago to some non-SCIF storage room. For anything else he should’ve had his own Program Manager reporting to one of the Assistants to the President whose job was to ensure that they were tracked and processed correctly. And then by the end of his term the number of boxes/documents that still need to be processed would be quite minimal. On January 18th they’d finish cleaning out the Oval Office, but have done most of the clean out at least a week earlier (on this office and all of his other offices) & the President using a separate Office, and on January 19th the only document left there would be a letter to his successor. & this other office & Air Force One & any other office’s contents then getting a final clean-up to this SCIF for declassification processing.
What happened was POOR PLANNING BY TRUMP. And yes he gave a gift to Biden with this. It was like how Bill Clinton’s handling of his Internship program was a gift to his political opponents.
What crime was the grand jury investigating?
If the documents were classified, then every member of the Grand Jury would have to have a security clearance to see them. Did they have that?
Why do you think it matters? If you think a subpoena is invalid there is a legal process to quash it. Guess what isn't legal: lying that you don't have the subpoenaed documents and conspiring with your staff to hide them.
If the documents were classified, then every member of the Grand Jury would have to have a security clearance to see them. Did they have that?
Why do you think it matters? Go make a citizen's arrest if you think someone saw classified documents that shouldn't have.
I blame Trump for his own actions.
Trump did not indict himself
The Document Fiasco like The Russia Russia Russia Hoax were not instigated by Trump.
Presidents have taken records prior to Trump i.e. Clinton, Bush and Obama to name three. The Biden Document Indictment is OUTRAGEOUS, especially in light of Biden’s own ILLEGAL document thefts while Senator and Vice President. Yet, you blame Trump for the manufactured nonsense. You are a Biden Tool. Be ashamed.
Are you stupid enough to think Trump would not have been indicted if he had just complied with the subpoena or made a motion to quash it?
When Trump wins the GOP primary, are you going to vote for him?
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