Department of Justice
The photo was taken in December 2021 by Walt Nauta, a co-defendant and valet for former President Donald Trump. Nauta was carrying and inspecting boxes at Trump’s residence when he noticed some boxes had fallen.
CNN
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In documents filed late Monday night, prosecutors led by Special Counsel Jack Smith pushed back against former President Donald Trump’s effort to dismiss a classified documents lawsuit against him over how agents handled materials found in boxes during an FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago in 2022.
Prosecutors detailed the search process with several previously unseen photographs and 30 pages of documents, making a mockery of Trump’s legal arguments.
“Mr. Trump personally chose to store documents containing some of the nation’s most closely guarded secrets in a cardboard box along with memorabilia of various sizes and shapes that he personally selected from his time in office, including newspapers, thank-you notes, Christmas decorations, magazines, clothing, and photographs of himself and others,” prosecutors wrote.
President Trump’s recent attempt to dismiss the case came after prosecutors acknowledged that some of the documents seized by the government were out of order in separate boxes.
Trump’s lawyers have previously argued that the reordering of the boxes’ contents affects their ability to build a defense around when specific classified material was placed in each box, given their location at Mar-a-Lago and what documents (including news articles) were next to them.
Department of Justice
A photo of the box taken by filter agents during an August 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago.
The new documents from Smith’s team detail how the search was conducted, the procedures FBI agents followed, how specific documents were removed from the boxes, and who removed them.
Prosecutors highlighted how agents found the box with its contents scattered on the floor, and showed photographs taken by agents and one of Trump’s accomplices.
“Given Trump’s haphazard storage of the boxes, prosecutors said he was arguing that the precise order of their contents was “material to his defence”, a claim they mocked.
To bolster their case, prosecutors have attached several new photos of the boxes, some of which were taken during the search. Two of the photos were taken in December 2021 by Trump’s co-defendant and chaperone, Walt Nauta, who noticed some of the boxes lying around as he was carrying them into Trump’s residence and inspecting them. Other photos were taken during the search, and prosecutors also included photos showing newspaper clippings, personal items and memorabilia that were mixed in with the classified government documents.
Prosecutors also said “the integrity of each container in which evidence was found — box to box integrity” was maintained.
“Nothing was lost, much less destroyed, and there was no malicious intent,” they added.
Department of Justice
A photo of the boxes taken by investigators during the August 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago.
To counter defense arguments that internal FBI emails suggest agents long ago knew there was something wrong with the way the boxes were seized, prosecutors clarified what the emails were actually about: A witness discovered additional classified materials at Mar-a-Lago the day after the August 2022 raid.
Prosecutors argued that Trump’s previous statements about the documents, including that he designated them personal and declassified them, contradicted the defense’s argument that the order of the documents helps prove that Trump did not know the contents of the box.
“The Court should view Trump’s newly fabricated explanation and allegations for what they are: his latest baseless accusation against law enforcement professionals doing their jobs,” they wrote.
