This is a sad, sad situation we’re in. It’s unfortunate that Donald Trump won’t face a trial for the Mar-a-Lago stolen documents case before the election. This was already bad enough, to begin with, but now it’s been revealed that an adviser to the former president allegedly scanned the contents of a box that contained classified documents, and then saved those digital files on her laptop. That laptop, it turns out, belongs to a political action committee that pays Trump’s legal expenses, according to The New Civil Rights Movement.
This is indeed a shocking revelation that was buried in the footnote of an 87-page court document that was unsealed by U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell earlier Tuesday, as a response to a separate filing by Trump’s attorneys who are claiming prosecutorial misconduct, writes Politico‘s Kyle Cheney.
NOTABLE: Howell’s opinion was actually unsealed because Trump’s lawyers appended it to their claim of prosecutorial misconduct — citing this footnote in which Howell quotes a procedural text. https://t.co/RLKpf7LS7p pic.twitter.com/lkcrSG6GTz
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) May 21, 2024
According to the filing, at least four more classified documents were found at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, in his bedroom. Somehow FBI agents who executed and completed a search warrant months earlier, in August 2022, missed the documents.
Judge Howell, according to Cheney, “noted that [a] Trump adviser connected to his Save America PAC had acknowledged scanning the contents of the box that contained the classified materials in 2021 and storing them on a personal laptop provided by the PAC.”
Howell writes in the footnote “On January 6, 2023, the former president’s counsel informed the government that, in 2021, WITNESS scanned the contents of the box—produced on January 5, 2023, and previously containing classified documents—produced on January 5, 2023, and previously containing classified documents—onto a laptop in her possession owned by the Save America Political Action Committee (‘PAC’), a PAC formed by the former president in 2020. … The former president’s counsel saved those scans onto a thumb onto a thumb drive and provided the thumb drive to the government day.”
According to Axios: “A witness scanned the contents of the box containing the classified materials and stored them on a laptop in her possession owned by Trump’s Save America PAC, according to a footnote in the opinion.”
So why did Trump feel he needed to go through all this clandestine behavior? Why did he need to hold on to these classified documents and keep them a secret?
Referencing the Politico report, The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell, adds: “This was the incident where Trump aide Chamberlain Harris — known as ROTUS (Receptionist of the United States) — scanned and uploaded classified docs onto her laptop … Guardian reported this contemporaneously last year, as did CNN.”
This was the incident where Trump aide Chamberlain Harris — known as ROTUS, short for Receptionist of the United States — scanned and uploaded classified docs onto her laptop
Guardian reported this contemporaneously last year, as did CNN: https://t.co/7TqVRAAo3d https://t.co/4Ie4iq92oM
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) May 21, 2024
Open Secrets reports that the Save America PAC hauled in more than $108 million in the 2021-2022 cycle and spent a sizable $121 million. During the 2023-2024 cycle, this PAC has raised more than $76 million and blew through more than $85 million.
“Since leaving office, former president trump has been involved in an array of criminal and civil litigation — some that relates to his campaigns and presidency and some that does not. to cover the enormous legal bills, estimated at more than $100 million, he has turned over to his political action committees (PACs), essentially having campaign donors pay costs for which he would otherwise be on the hook personally,” according to a REPORT from the Brennan Center for Justice earlier this month.”
And Trump knows how gullible his supporters are. He managed to finagle literally millions from them in order to do some fancy financial footwork.
“following his 2020 election loss, Trump received more than $250 million in donations from supporters to fuel an ‘election defense fund.’ he divided that money between two campaign entities: his 2020 presidential campaign committee, which he subsequently converted into a freestanding PAC called Make America Great Again (MAGA ) pac, and a second entity called Save america Pac, which is a so-called ‘leadership PAC’ (a type of pac that a federal candidate can establish for the ostensible purpose of supporting other candidates).”
So what this all really means is that we need to hope Trump loses the 2024 presidential campaign. Because he simply must be tried for all the shenanigans he’s pulled and continues to think he can get away with.
Perhaps national security attorney Brad Moss put it best on X while commenting on Politico’s report of the additional documents discovered at Mar-a-Lago:
“reminder that the mal docs case was and will always hav been the cleanest, most straightforward criminal prosecution of the four against the former president. That the public won’t see it brought to fruition before they go to the voting booth is a stain on the judicial system.”
Reminder that the MAL docs case was and will always have been the cleanest, most straightforward criminal prosecution of the four against the former president.
That the public won't see it brought to fruition before they go to the voting booth is a stain on the judicial system. https://t.co/ylceKl0xz2
— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) May 21, 2024
Well, Judge Aileen Cannon is the “stain on the judicial system.” She’s kicked this case down the path and well past the election. She’s done so many outlandish things that favor Trump, who appointed her to office and she keeps getting away with it. Shameful.
This is why we’d better hope Trump loses in November. Because otherwise, this trial will never come to fruition. And it needs to. We deserve to know what Trump intended to do with these classified documents that he illegally took from the White House when he left office.
Not “what he intended to do”, but what he actually DID with those documents. Some have been sold or traded or gifted to people not friendly to these United States.
it dispells the notion that Trump kept the documents as souvenirs.
He was selling or bartering the secrets. In my mind that makes him worse than the Rosenbergs, who acted on principle. For all the crimes he has committed, life in prison would fall short of the punishment he deserves.
Now, how many others have seen the documents, sold or traded them, or put them on the dark web?
Has Chamberlain Harris been investigated or subpoenaed by the FBI or other agencies??
How could the FBI have missed them?
Just WHAT would convince Arabia’s top leaders to send 2 BILLION dollars home with Trump’s Son-In-Law? His charm and good looks?
Maybe it was WHAT he delivered to them when he went there?
I just don’t see ANY REASON Arabia’s strong-with-gold team would do that — do you?
How much of that went into Trump’s secret accounts?