Trump team claimed boxes at Mar-a-Lago were only news clippings

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Washington Post

Months before National Archives officials found hundreds of classified documents they retrieved from former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club, they were told that none of the material was sensitive or classified and that Trump only had 12 boxes of “news clippings,” according to people familiar with the conversations between Trump’s team and the Archives. During a September 2021 phone call with top Archives lawyer Gary Stern, Trump lawyer Pat Philbin offered reassuring news: Philbin said he had talked with former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who made the assertion about the dozen boxes of clippings, the people familiar with the call said.

Trump’s team was aware of no other materials, Philbin said, relaying information he said he got from Meadows. The characterization made in the call vastly misrepresented the scale and variety of documents, including classified records, eventually recovered by the Archives or the FBI. Philbin said that Meadows also told him no documents had been destroyed, according to two people with knowledge of the call and a third person with knowledge of Stern’s contemporaneous account of the call. These and other people spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose internal details.

Stern had sought the call because he believed there were still more than two dozen boxes of materials that Trump had, and he also had concerns about whether digital records had been properly retained, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. Archives top officials continued to believe there was more material than they were being told about, according to people familiar with their thinking. A spokeswoman for Philbin declined to comment. A lawyer for Meadows declined to comment, and a spokesman for Meadows did not respond to calls seeking comment. A person close to Philbin said he was unaware of the contents of the boxes and did not know there was classified material in them.

In the year since the call, Archives and Justice Department officials have recovered 42 boxes of records from Trump’s Palm Beach, Fla., property, including 15 boxes handed over by Trump’s representatives to the Archives last January and another 27 boxes retrieved by the FBI during a court-authorized search of Mar-a-Lago in August.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/16/trump-records-archives-clippings/

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No paywall link

[underpants]

1. Oh oh oh, you mean THIS cookie jar that my hand is in

I thought you meant the one over there.

[RKP5637]

2. They literally must think the rest of the world is as stupid as his maggot cult!!! n/t

[Shipwack]

27. Well, to be fair, they aren't entirely wrong...

Maybe they thought everyone was stupid, maybe they were counting on everyone being too spineless to aggressively persecute, maybe they were just playing for time. The fact of the matter is they did get away with it, and may still be getting away with it... IMHO there are still documents if not at Mar a Lago, then at other properties. I worry that some may have already been digitized and/or already given to other countries.

It took way too long to search Mar a Lago... It is taking way to long to search his other properties, as well as his phone and his associates phones. My hope is that they haven't waited... that they searched other places, and the reason the public doesn't talk about it is because it's been kept quiet, even by Trump (as unlikely as it is for him to keep his big mouth shut). Maybe his communications have been compromised for months, negating the need to move quickly because they know exactly what he's up to.

[RKP5637]

28. All excellent points!!!! n/t

[viva la]

3. Of course, his staff would know he was lying

But as always, they preferred to pretend.
We have utter contempt for them.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

4. The number of different stories is getting long

Link to tweet

[Mr. Ected]

5. And yet a federal judge doesn't trust the veritability of the DOJ as compared to Trump

Any lucid judge that makes such a determination is obviously part of the cover up.

[calimary]

6. Why does it feel like we're drowning in horse shit?

[Evolve Dammit]

17. That's exactly what it is.

[dalton99a]

7. And Judge Aileen says, "You can grab me anytime!"

[KentuckyWoman]

8. The FBI planted secretly declassified news clippings

alrighty then

[jmowreader]

9. In my life as an intelligence analyst I handled a LOT of news clippings

I never saw one that was anything higher than Unclassified. Even if we were clipping articles out of Izvestia, the official newspaper of the Soviet government, or Neues Deutschland, the official newspaper of the East German government, they were unclassified. ("But where would you get such a thing?" You know they had newspaper dealers in Berlin. You could get papers from all over in Berlin.

The fact that Trump had so much SCI in his broom closet they had to rent a forklift to move it all puts the lie to his team's claims that the information he had was just news clippings.

[ZonkerHarris]

10. Okay then if you say trump lied to you then you get to testify against him or go to jail too.

[twodogsbarking]

11. It was Barron's homework. That's next.

[turbinetree]

12. Okay its time to just go into the rat infested place and frog march this guy out......

anyone else that had documents that were stolen from the government, with I don't know TOP SECRET stamped on them would be right now be given our rights to an attorney and such and would be in jail charged and waiting for trial.....no bond.....passport taken away.......take the keys from the jets.....enough is enough....

[EnergizedLib]

13. Oh, he's changing his story yet again?

Guilty.

[truthisfreedom]

14. "The dog ate my clippings."

Oh, that’s right, he hates dogs.

[Novara]

15. Keep digging, motherfuckers.

You're already in so deep you can't possibly climb out.

[EndlessWire]

16. There is just no excuse.

None at all. The only wiggle room he has is a plea bargain. And, at this point, most people want his ass in prison. It is extremely important to see that no one person is above the law. He still thinks that he can maneuver around the truth and get away with espionage. It is surprising how many high profile people are supporting him, for money, power and position, but never to support our Democracy.

[Evolve Dammit]

18. MAGAT LARDO should have been stripped to the wall studs to find everything this MF stole and hid.

Then on to Bedminster. He is a threat to the US security and a traitor. LOCK HIM UP.

[Evolve Dammit]

21. The reality is that many of the highly classified docs were likely scanned, copied,thumb-drived and

distributed to anyone willing to PAY. That's who he is. And you can bet he retained the most sensitive as "insurance" against prosecution.

[COL Mustard]

35. If you don't think there were/are foreign agents on the cleaning/housekeeping/landscaping crews at

At MAL, come talk to me about this bridge I own. I'll sell it to you for cheap! Oh, and I have some oceanfront property right outside of Phoenix that can be YOURS for just a song!

[no_hypocrisy]

19. How can you "de-classify" news clippings?

I'll wait . . . . . . . . .

[gab13by13]

20. I have been saying, Mark Meadows is the key,

put the squeeze on him. Yet I hear that DOJ will not bring Meadows before a grand jury until after the election. National security be damned.

[Evolve Dammit]

22. Gitmo works for me. He and Orange Chosen One are Enemies of the State, pure and simple. nt

[ificandream]

23. And if you believe that, I have this (Trump) Tower to sell you ...

[grantcart]

24. Up next: Trump claims boxes full of grass clippings

[NewHendoLib]

25. Will. Someone. Please. Have. The. Courage. To. Lock Him Up!

He's sucked enough attention out of the world for several lifetimes.

He's a piece of dogshit. Not worthy of a microsecond of attention

[Blue Owl]

29. No shit -- c'mon already! What kind of precedent are they trying to set???

[Bengus81]

36. No shit!! Tired of everyday on the news being told how ILLEGAL ALL of Trumps

actions are yet he's been charged with NOTHING.

[Turbineguy]

26. Gee, and I completely forgot

what all their other excuses were!

[sprinkleeninow]

30. boxes were only nail clippings...

[Blue Owl]

31. And coupons, don't forget the coupons

[NullTuples]

32. A narcissist will say whatever protects their ego, and believe it 100%

And I'm guessing that since the judge ruled he gets the original documents back without the DoJ getting copies, he thinks he can simply declare what the documents are/were and nobody can challenge him.

[Initech]

33. There. Is. Always. An. Excuse. With. These. Clowns. Always.

[COL Mustard]

34. Have the authorities checked Bedminster?

How about the country club outside DC? Or any other of Orange Man's properties?

Let's get cracking, fellas!

[BumRushDaShow]

38. They would probably need an informant

who could give them enough details to list what to look for and where at those propertie, for a search warrant (which is how they were able to get as explicit as they did for MAL). I expect in the meantime, they might (if they haven't already and it hasn't been revealed "publicly" ) issue a subpoena for "anything" located at those other properties and see what happens (we know what would probably happen but they would have to go through the steps anyway).

[COL Mustard]

40. I'm with you

I want him in prison in the worst way, but I want it to be 100% legal.

What’s the saying again? Something about Lock him up!

[Bengus81]

37. What's next is Trump blaming his legal team for making that statement

when it's of course proven to be bullshit.

[Beartracks]

39. He wants us to believe he reads?

========

[Roy Rolling]

41. Not Reading the Article

I’m happy to read BumRushDaShow.

But the WP lost me at “Trump team claimed…”

[BumRushDaShow]

42. Well the spectacle of reading about people throwing other people under the bus

is worth a scan!

[DallasNE]

43. What About The Boxes

Shown in photographs shown being loaded in Florida for a trip to Bedminister NJ for a Trump fundraiser costing $250,000 per couple in May 2021? To my knowledge those boxes have never been accounted for.