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On Tuesday, journalist Julie Kelly posted court documents on X showing Special Counsel Jack Smith “admitted the FBI added cover sheets to alleged classified documents found at MAL and took photos for evidence.”
“This confirms my report from last month that the FBI doctored evidence to produce stunt photos of classified documents at [Mar-a-Lago],” Kelly said. //
The FBI purchased glossy cover sheets to use in photos of authorities’ unprecedented raid of former President Donald Trump. //
Prosecutors admitted to mishandling the evidence triggering the delay demanded by the judge which now threatens the possibility for Smith’s team to go to trial before the November election.
According to Kelly on Tuesday, the FBI’s colored cover sheets were included in “classified discovery” implicating prosecutors’ desire to keep the details of the added documents concealed from the public.
“The FBI brought colored classified cover sheets to the raid under the guise of using them to substitute classified documents found within Trump’s boxes,” Kelly wrote on X. “Instead, FBI agents attached the scary looking sheets to various files and took photos.”
The images published by prosecutors became emblematic of the former president’s apparent irresponsibility illustrated from the raid.
The prosecution team destroyed exculpatory evidence supporting one of the most basic defenses available to President Trump in response to the politically motivated charges in this case. The Special Counsel’s Office has wrongfully alleged that President Trump was aware of the contents of boxes in August 2022, where those boxes were packed by others in the White House and moved to Florida in January 2021. The fact that the allegedly classified documents were buried in boxes and comingled with President Trump’s personal effects from his first term in office strongly supported the defense argument that he lacked knowledge and culpable criminal intent with respect to the documents at issue. Any proximity between allegedly classified documents and other dated materials from years before the move, such as letters and newspapers, would have further strengthened this argument. The prosecution team’s instructions to agents who executed the raid essentially acknowledged these propositions, and directed the agents to take care to document the location of both seized items and potentially privileged materials.
However, the agents disregarded those instructions. The government was more interested in staging—and leaking—manipulated photographs to the press than preserving key exculpatory evidence that has now been lost forever. Trump, ECF No. 48-1.2 The agents did not maintain the order of the documents, and they did not take photographs that would have served as alternative evidence of the documents’ sequence in each box. In July 2023, the agents disclosed this fact during a meeting with prosecutors from the Special Counsel’s Office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida (“USAO-SDFL”). But the Office did not timely disclose the notes from that meeting for almost a full year. Indeed, they persisted in that suppression, notwithstanding that the notes were responsive to an October 2023 discovery request from President Trump, while urging the Court to rush to trial based on false assurances that they were in compliance with their discovery obligations.
In hearings during March and April 2024, the Special Counsel’s Office misrepresented to the Court that the pre-raid sequence of the documents was intact. Only after an evidence inspection by counsel for President Trump’s co-defendants revealed the extent of the problem did the Office disclose in a May 3, 2024 filing that the documents were not intact as had been claimed previously. Vague language in that submission and corresponding additional discovery demands from President Trump caused these due process violations to further unravel.
It’s a dry heat
9 hours ago edited
Just to be clear, including a provision in the direction for conducting the search warrant specifically authorizing heavily armed men to use deadly force is not deemed by Smith as creating "a significant, imminent, and foreseeable danger" to a former President and his family is perfectly okay; but for Trump to recite verbatim this authorization to use deadly force against him and his family somehow creates an intolerable risk to Smith and his goons? That's the argument? Oh please, someone play some tiny violin music while Smith cowers against the possibility that the FBI threat to kill Trump might make some people mad.
Smith should include in his request that Trump not make mention of the fact the FBI staged that infamous photo of the so-called classified material that it recovered. When I read that it made me really mad.
FBI documents included in the unsealed filings also revealed that shortly before the raid was authorized and executed, Trump was cooperating with the FBI. //
Julie Kelly 🇺🇸
@julie_kelly2
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I believe the redacted name is Trump's attorney.
He advised Trump not to permit the feds into another area of MAL. Trump overruled that counsel and let Bratt and FBI into the basement storage area where boxes were located.
Two months later, Bratt initiated the armed,… Show more
7:17 PM · May 23, 2024. //
In August 2022, the FBI did not believe that it was necessary to raid Mar-a-Lago. See Ex. 1 at USA-00940268.
UpLateAgain Lightning47
5 hours ago
The raid should NEVER have been authorized. It was total BS. But should the language restricting the use of deadly force have been removed from the op order? Absolutely NOT. The Deadly Force Policy RESTRICTS the use of deadly force. It's not a green light to use it. It specifies the only conditions under which it can be used. Police at every level (including the FBI) are commonly reminded of the department's shooting policy before an action. To remove it would be LEGALLY seen as inviting gun play. //
GBenton Lex Naturae
4 hours ago
As in War Games, the only way to win this is not to play.
There should have been no raid. The language, per se, is not the real issue. Every raid has the language for a reason. But it IS a very big freaking reason why they never, ever should have done this. //
GBenton mikwcas
5 hours ago
yeah, we're witnessing fascism, Communism, and tyranny. And we're parsing whether the use of force order was extraordinary.
We need to make them live by their own rules. They hype up nonsense into crimes. Well, turn around is fair play. They create a scenario for an illegitimate raid that included potential for use of deadly force, they gotta own it.
Tone it down? No. Wrong answer. Shout it from the rooftops. Biden tried to kill Trump if the circumstances allowed. And Jack Smith tried to frame him and set up the hit.
Oh, it's not unique to Trump. SO WHAT?
The entire raid shouldn't have been used in the first place. And this only makes that a zillion times more true. //
GBenton bk
5 hours ago
Good people project their good nature on others. It's hard for some to see that evil is being done intentionally on our soil by our government. Conservatives want to have faith in law enforcement and the legal system. But it's all been perverted.
The bottom line is they are manufacturing fake crimes to persecute Trump and those around him, not to mention Christians, parents, etc.
We should not ever again give these filth the benefit of the doubt. When our side gets back in power, and it will happen some day, odds are, the game needs to change: They need to be prosecuted for their actual crimes and abuse of power.
The Bush/McCain/Romney doctrine of let bygones be bygones is suicide. Only one said plays by the rules so the game is rigged against us.
Or, we could keep taking the high road, not pushing every advantage, and let them basically win by default over time. //
GBenton Susie Moore
4 hours ago
Agree 100% Characterizing it as a "hit" is over stepping.
But that the order made it possible use of force could have resulted in death underscores how wildly irresponsible this raid was in the full context.
There should never have been a raid if that inherently involved a risk of loss of life over documents, etc.
The FBI was authorized to use “deadly force” against former President Donald Trump when the Biden administration agency raided Mar-a-Lago in search of classified documents, according to newly unsealed court documents shared on X by independent journalist Julie Kelly.
Attorney General Merrick Garland personally approved the unprecedented raid on Trump’s Florida home in the summer of 2022, after which special counsel Jack Smith indicted Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents. Notably, President Joe Biden also retained classified documents following his tenure as vice president but was not charged by his own Justice Department because prosecutors said he would likely “present himself to the jury, as he did during our interview with him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
A newly unsealed operations order reveals the FBI was authorized to use deadly force against the former president if need be, Kelly reported.
While the explanation may seem plausible, altering the order of documents represents a serious form of evidence tampering that could completely undermine the prosecution's case.
Perhaps even more extraordinary, the prosecution then admits that they misled the court by previously indicating that the evidence had been left untouched since its seizure last year.
"The Government acknowledges that this is inconsistent with what Government counsel previously understood and represented to the Court," the legal filing notes. //
etba_ss JSobieski
5 hours ago
It's his job to know, not guess. Therefore, he is either incompent and lied when he certified something was true when he didn't know that for a fact or he did know and lied about it. Either way, Smith lied.
It wasn't simply a random throwaway line. He certified to the court that the documents weren't viewed and weren't tampered with. Both happened. So he either lied in original filing by stating something as fact that he didn't know or he is lying now.
Otherwise, a lead prosecutor could have his team do things and not tell him and then he could claim it didn't happen and be under no obligation to the truth. He has to certify to truth, so there is no way around him lying. Either he lied about knowing or knew and lied about it not happening.
The Federalist asked NARA whether the pallets shipped by GSA included the documents that were later confiscated by Smith’s team during their raid of Mar-a-Lago, and NARA’s media staff responded that the agency had “no awareness about the contents of the materials on the pallets and had no involvement in the move project that is referenced in the GSA emails.”
“NARA was harassing Trump throughout 2021 for what they insisted were government records apparently WITHOUT contacting GSA to search dozens of boxes in their possession,” Kelly observed.
America First Legal
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/1🚨EXPLOSIVE — Unsealed docs reveal just how intimately the Biden White House worked with NARA to trigger the Special Counsel classified docs investigation of President Trump.
This confirms our own research that this prosecution is politically tainted and should be dismissed:
1:27 PM · Apr 26, 2024 //
As RedState previously reported, this week, an unredacted version of former President Trump's motion for discovery in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case released by Judge Aileen Cannon has already suggested collaboration between NARA, the Justice Department, and the Biden administration. The motion shows bias within NARA, including internal emails from General Counsel Stern discussing strategies to prejudice President Trump and timing public communications with Congress. Three days after these communications, the Biden Administration directed NARA to reject Trump's claim of executive privilege and disclose records to the January 6th Committee.
On Monday, Judge Aileen Cannon released an unredacted version of former President Trump's motion for discovery in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case. The document appears to show collaboration between the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the Justice Department, and the Biden administration to develop the case.