‘Strange! Everything about the boxes was so neat, orderly and clean…’ Trump accuses FBI of STAGING classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago after 31 count indictment laid shocking allegations bare
- Donald Trump’s 37-count indictment was made public on Friday, with the 49-page document spelling out allegations of mishandling classified information
- The indictment included new photos of boxes of documents throughout Mar-a-Lago, stored in a ballroom, a bathroom, and a small storage cupboard
- Trump on Friday said he thought the photos had been staged, writing on social media: ‘Strange! Everything about the boxes was so neat, orderly, and clean’
Donald Trump on Friday accused the FBI of staging photographs which show the boxes of classified documents illegally stored at his Florida estate.
The photos were published in a 49-page indictment unsealed on Friday.
The indictment accuses Trump, 76, of 37 counts relating to the mishandling of classified documents and obstruction of justice.
Trump said the photos were suspicious, writing on Truth Social: ‘Strange! Everything about the boxes was so neat, orderly, and clean.’
‘Did the FBI tip over the one box the way they ‘staged’ the papers on the floor during the raid of Mar-a-Lago, only to apologize after getting caught?’
Donald Trump left classified documents scattered across his bathroom and the Mar-a-Lago ballroom and bragged to aides about taking military secrets, according to the stunning indictment unsealed by the Department of Justice on Friday
Extraordinary new photos (above) revealed in the damning filing lay out how Trump valet Walt Nauta walked into a storage room and found intelligence files on allies including the United Kingdom and Australia spilled on the floor
He said that one of the photos, which showed documents spilling out of an overturned box, proved he was innocent because it appeared to contain newspapers in addition to other pieces of paper.
Timeline of the classified documents
May 2021: National Archives realizes some records from Trump’s presidency are missing
December 2021: Archives requests the documents from the former president
January 2022: Archives received 15 boxes of material that had been stored at Mar-a-Lago, some of which were found to contain classified material
February 2022: The matter is referred to the Justice Department. Trump’s team perform a ‘dress rehearsal’, to ready for the possibility of a search for the documents
May 2022: After several back-and-forths with Trump’s legal team, the Justice Department issues a subpoena for additional records they believe to be in the former president’s Florida home
Investigators believe after that subpoena arrived, storage boxes, including some containing classified material, were moved from a Mar-a-Lago storage area, so Trump personally examined some of them
June 2, 2022: Walt Nauta and two employees move documents out of a store room. Hours later, Trump’s lawyers contact the DOJ and say they are welcome to visit and retrieve the documents
June 3, 2022: Three FBI agents and one DOJ attorney go to Mar-a-Lago to retrieve the additional material. They were given a single Redweld envelope, double-wrapped in tape, containing the documents, according to later court filings. That envelope contained 38 records with classification markings, including five papers marked confidential, 16 marked secret and 17 marked top secret
August 2022: DOJ applied for a search warrant for Mar-a-Lago, citing ‘probable cause’ that additional presidential records and records containing classified information remained at Trump’s Florida home. Court papers show that the original search warrant application showed agents believed that ‘evidence of obstruction will be found at the premises’
August 8, 2022: FBI agents raid Mar-a-Lago: They recover 18 documents marked as top secret, 54 marked secret, 31 marked as confidential, and 11,179 government documents or photographs that had no classification markings
November 18, 2022: Merrick Garland, the attorney general, announces that he has appointed a special counsel to investigate the handling of the classified documents – Jack Smith
June 8, 2023: Donald Trump says he has been indicted on federal charges over the classified information
‘The Box on the floor which was opened (who opened it?) clearly shows there was no ‘documents,’ but rather newspapers, personal pictures, etc.’ he said.
‘WITCH HUNT!’
The photo is believed to come from a text message sent by Walt Nauta, Trump’s aide, who on Friday was also charged.
Nauta texted another Trump staffer a picture of documents containing classified information that were spewed all over a bathroom floor.
‘I opened the door and found this,’ he wrote, according to the indictment – and included two photographs of the spilled documents, at least one of which contained classified documents.
The indictment states that the specific documents were related to intelligence between the ‘Five Eyes’ countries.
Those countries represent an ‘intelligence-sharing alliance’ between the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
The ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence is particularly sensitive because it requires all five members of the group to trust the others with their own top-secret information.
Trump was on Friday at his Bedminster, New Jersey resort and was pictured playing golf with Florida congressman Carlos Gimenez, who was mayor of Miami before being elected to Congress.
Trump will be in Miami on Tuesday for his arraignment.
But his legal representation was thrown into chaos by two of his attorneys resigning on Friday.
The attorneys, Jim Trusty and John Rowley, did not explain in detail why they had resigned, other than to say in a joint statement that ‘this is a logical moment’ to do so given his indictment.
Trusty and Rowley also said they will no longer represent Trump in a pending federal criminal probe into his efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.
Trusty had made multiple appearances on television news shows on Thursday evening and Friday morning to discuss the indictment of Trump in his capacity as his lawyer.
After the indictment was unsealed, Trump went on Truth Social to call the special counsel, Jack Smith a ‘deranged ‘psycho’ that shouldn’t be involved in any case having to do with ‘Justice,’ other than to look at Biden as a criminal, which he is!’
Trump said: ‘Biden moved his Boxes all over the place, including to Chinatown and up to his lawyer’s office in Boston.
‘Why isn’t deranged Jack Smith looking at that? Also, I supplied them openly, and without question, security tape from Mar-a-Lago. I had nothing to hide, nor do I now. Nobody said I wasn’t allowed to look at the personal records that I brought with me from the White House. There’s nothing wrong with that…. ‘
The indictment accuses Trump of instructing his attorneys to hide information from the Department of Justice, suggesting they ‘pluck out’ damaging classified documents.
It also reveals a bombshell recounting of a conversation during which Trump showed members of his staff a highly-sensitive military ‘plan of attack’ document given to him by a senior military official.
‘The unauthorized disclosure of the material could put at risk the national security of the United States, foreign relations, the safety of the United States military, and human sources and the continued viability of sensitive intelligence collection methods,’ the indictment states.
The indictment says that Trump ’caused’ scores of boxes, including those with classified information, to be transported to his home at Mar-a-Lago, his private club in West Palm Beach.
Trump looked in good spirits as he hit the links with Republican Rep. Carlos Gimenez of Florida
On June 24, 2021, boxes were moved from the Lake Room to the infamous Storage Room, where DOJ officials would ultimately ask Trump to put on a new loc
The charging document contains images of boxes of documents stored at Mar-a-Lago
In one photo, the cardboard boxes are seen stacked in front of a shower curtain and next to a sink in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom. Some of Trump’s aides simply called the files ‘his papers’
A photo of documents seized during the August 8 search of Mar-a-Lago was published by the Justice Department
The indictment includes a transcript of a recording where Trump claims to brandish secret information at his Bedminster golf clut
‘See as president I could have declassified it,’ Trump says on the tape – apparently contradicting his claim that could classify information just by thinking about it and giving prosecutors material to hash out in court
The documents note in dry language that Mar-a-Lago – an ‘active social club’ – was ‘not an authorized location for the storage, possession, review, display’ or discussion of classified documents.
The indictment references a previously reported event from July 2021 at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club where he described and showed a document about a ‘plan of attack’ that he said was prepared by the Pentagon.
The document is believed to detail a U.S. plan to attack Iran.
Trump used the document to disparage the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, who he said had drawn it up.
It also says in September 2021 Trump showed a representative of his PAC, also at Bedminster, a classified map about an unidentified ‘military operation.’
He told the representative that he should not be showing it – language suggestion prosecutors could use to try to establish consciousness of guilt.
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