Items with classified markings found at Trump storage unit in Florida

[brooklynite]

Source: Washington Post

Lawyers for former president Donald Trump found at least two items marked classified after an outside team hired by Trump searched a storage unit in West Palm Beach, Fla., used by the former president, according to people familiar with the matter.

Those items were turned over to the FBI, according to those people, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
The search was one of at least three searches conducted by an outside team of his properties for classified materials in recent weeks, after they were pressed by a federal judge to attest they had fully complied with a May grand jury subpoena to turn over all materials bearing classified markings, according to people familiar with the matter.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/07/trump-tower-bedminster-records-search/

[Yonnie3]

1. link with no paywall

https://wapo.st/3FvBu4N

I had posted this a minute later than this OP with the above link.

[Richard D]

2. I'm glad that they got it all, but . . .

. . . trump lawyers should be believed because???

[2naSalit]

8. Got all of what?

That was probably not everything that's missing.

[tinrobot]

45. Probably all the stuff that isn't worth selling.

The valuable stuff has probably been sold off already.

[Hieronymus Phact]

50. Cough, 2billion, Cough, Cough

[moniss]

55. Absolutely right

but there just might be video surveillance of who came and went if this was a public facility. Maybe more bread crumbs to follow along the trail. I would also expect that our intelligence community is trying to ascertain any "usual suspects" foreign governments making any strange changes to their foreign policy/military/trade policies or actions. I think they have a likely idea of the kinds of things that were taken and sold. Follow the trail, line up the likely recipients and work your sources really hard. All it will take is one confession.

[agingdem]

60. Trump is a selfish sonofabitch..he's not selling anything..

I think he intended to display the documents in his "presidential" library...and I think he intended to built that library on club grounds..he'd want them close by... Trump is a deranged psychopath for sure, but he's also a kleptomaniac with the mentality of a two year old...MINE!!!

[Captain Zero]

9. Sounds like the lawyers fear THEY will go to jail

Because they know he throws everyone under the bus.

[msfiddlestix]

49. That's an interesting thought, I was skeptical but in light of what you theorized.. it would be in

their best interest is to cough up the goods.

[Chainfire]

59. Let Mikey sign it...

There is no way that his lawyers could ever declare, in a legal document, that Trump doesn't have more documents strewn about, without risking their careers if not their freedom. Unlike Trump, lawyers are not to big to jail...

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

69. Yep

Some say MAGA stands for my attorney got arrested.

[LudwigPastorius]

13. They'd have to search the Kremlin to get it all.

[CanonRay]

24. This!

[StClone]

35. :..and Riyadh and Tel aviv

[Meadowoak]

80. and Ivana's coffin.

[calimary]

38. No kidding.

[grantcart]

17. They hired an independent group to do the search.

[agingdem]

25. and why the search now??...and this "outside team?..

who the hell are they and do they have the necessary security clearance to go trumpster diving?...I suspect Trump's legal team got a DOJ heads-up they were on their way...

[stopdiggin]

31. OP explains motivation

Trump team is being pressed to attest to 'all materials turned over.'

And, yes - claiming falsely (particularly after previous such false claims) would probably carry real legal consequence.

[agingdem]

57. but didn't one of Trump's clown car lawyers

Last edited Wed Dec 7, 2022, 07:02 PM - Edit history (1)

attest to "all materials turned over" in June?...I suspect they knew their "client" had documents off-site..what prompted this outside team to check a storage unit how did they know about the storage unit?... my gut tells me the Trump team is scared of Jack Smith and they're trying to anticipate his next move...

[stopdiggin]

74. as I said

the point is, that there have been previous false attestations. As in most things 'once' might be explained as an honest mistake or misunderstanding - whereas repeated such false claims before the court (or other judicial entity) will be seen as deliberate falsehood and perjury. You and I will disagree on the 'suspect they knew' - I think it is much more likely that previous statements were made based on the assurances of a 'client' that simply can't be trusted in his words or dealings. "Once bitten, twice shy" - and I suspect that applies to Trump's representation, and might go some ways to explaining this 'third party' search maneuver. Lawyers really don't like to go before a court with bald faced lies. There are consequences. There are a few gibbering idiots around out there like RudyG (that, incidentally, you really don't want representing you) - but most attorneys would much prefer to keep their licenses, standing and practice ...

[intrepidity]

3. Why tf does tfg have a storage unit?!?

If that isn't the biggest red flag, I don't know what is.

[hibbing]

7. I know, I'm like wth? n/t

[Tanuki]

16. Yes...who else had access? Was it a "drop" location where a foreign agent

could pick something up without attracting attention?

[onetexan]

23. Wow. I think you're on to something there.

[tavernier]

26. Hmm... good point.

You guys are so clever. I never would’ve thought of that.

[halfulglas]

27. Yeah. With all his properties, he needs a storage unit?

Also check into if he has rented storage vault space. Some companies lease such spaces to store their archives and other important files that are not used regularly that they use for files that haven't been digitized.

[halfulglas]

30. The fact that it's in a storage unit instead might mean he wants to have quicker access

By one of his toadies to pick up and deliver to him if he needs it for a "meeting" or just to fondle his "pretties." Also get a follow up search warrant for Maralargo to see if he has brought other documents out of hiding.

[ratchiweenie]

68. Someone could easily place a hidden camera to watch his unit. Would

love to see who comes and goes and with what.

[jmowreader]

33. A LOT of hotels have offsite storage

Consider: You run a hotel. You do weddings. Weddings take a lot of things you wouldn't need on a routine basis, like chairs, tables, archways, huge amounts of serviceware...you either need huge storerooms on the property to keep this equipment in when you're not running a wedding, or you have offsite storage for it.

Since Mar-a-Lago is now a hotel and Trump does weddings in it, this makes sense.

Keeping classified government documents in your offsite storage...this doesn't make sense to anyone who isn't him.

[intrepidity]

37. Yep, that's where I envisioned these files were found

In a storage unit full of flowers and chairs.

[calimary]

44. Might have actually worked. All he'd have to do is give orders that it be well-hidden.

Maybe trump was betting that searchers would do like he’d do, and glance around inside, maybe search a couple of feet in, find nothing but flowers and chairs, and decide they’d seen enough?

“Shit, it’s 3 o’clock, my kid’s gotta get picked up and my wife can’t get off work…”

“Meh, looks like that’s all there is. Weddings are big business at that place.”

“It’s already quitting time and my back’s been killing me all day.”

“Okay. Flowers and chairs. S’all I see. Just flowers and chairs. What’s our next stop?”

“Let’s just get done with this. Traffic’s gonna be murder if it takes too long.”

Seriously. I’m old. I’ve heard enough reasonable AND unreasonable excuses to fill a book.

[Evolve Dammit]

53. If I was a supervisor when they raided Magat Lago, I would have torn the walls down to the studs. No

way he doesn't have false panels and areas to hide "precious" things.... And off-site storage units could be multiple and in NY, NJ, FL and who knows where else. Waterboard him. Not torture according to AG Gonzalez and Jon Yoo. Is that wrong??

[jmowreader]

76. Well...kinda

Come on: if you were in charge of water boarding Trump, you’d put him in a cattle trough and fill it to the brim. You know you would.

[tinrobot]

46. Top Secret documents are a great wedding decoration.

Particularly Russian and Saudi weddings.

I'm sure the "wedding planners" made good use of the decor.

[Richard D]

40. I assumed . . .

. . . that was the purpose of Ivana's coffin.

(satire)

[onenote]

66. He has a storage unit because he has a lot of stuff

From the Post article:

Emails released by the General Services Administration, which assists former presidents during their transition to private life, show that the government agency helped rent the storage unit at a private facility in West Palm Beach on July 21, 2021. The unit was needed to store items that had been held at an office in Northern Virginia used by Trump staffers in the months just after he left office. The emails show that the GSA and Trump staffers worked together to arrange to ship several pallets of boxes and other items weighing more than 3,000 pounds from Northern Virginia to the Florida storage unit in September 2021.

[intrepidity]

67. He also owns a *lot* of real estate

But I guess "no room at the inn."

[cos dem]

4. Seems like it's time to go tear out the walls in all of his properties.

He's obviously trying to hide something.

[FakeNoose]

28. Ivanka and Jared built a new mansion on that private island in FL

They were building around the same time that Chump evacuated the White House. Also we should probably assume that MBS got something extra from Jared for his $2 billion "loan."

There are all kinds of possibilities.

[DavidDvorkin]

5. Will the SOB continue to skate?

Regretfully, I'm assuming so.

[iluvtennis]

6. + 1.

[sarcasmo]

52. No doubt in my mind.

[jaxexpat]

10. ...and he's also a hoarder.

[Orrex]

11. What would happen to you or me if we were caught with stolen classified materials?

Hint: we wouldn’t be walking around free for months and months.

[agingdem]

22. what would happen to you or me if we walked out of the

White House with a napkin?...stopped, searched, arrested before we cleared the grounds...

[onenote]

62. Here's what happened to Sandy Berger. He walked around free for months and months.

Sandy Berger walked out of NARA with classified documents stuffed in his socks and pants in September and October 2003. That he had done so was discovered by NARA in October 2003 and referred to DOJ shortly thereafter. Although he initially lied to investigators about the removal of the documents, he was never arrested. The investigation of his removal of the documents wasn't publicly acknowledged until 2004 and he plead guilty in 2005 to a misdemeanor, was fined $50,000 and sentenced to two years of probation and 100 hours of community service. He never spent a day in jail, either before or after his guilty plea.

[Orrex]

75. Damn, that's pretty appalling.

I once got a ticket for stopping a quarter car-length past a stop sign in an empty intersection, but spies can do whatever the fuck they want with relative impunity.

In purely economic terms, why the fuck wouldn't people with access to classified materials steal them at every opportunity? The slap on the wrist that they're likely to get is almost certainly offset by whatever they get for stealing them in the first place.

[gab13by13]

12. Never going to get back all of the stolen documents,

because the FBI doesn't have jurisdiction in Russia, N. Korea, Saudi Arabia, China, Turkey.

[Pepsidog]

14. F'er!

[Greybnk48]

15. they need to check Ivana's coffin.

She was a very small woman, and the pall-bearers struggle to carry the coffin it was so heavy.

[tavernier]

29. Knowing Rump, probably not papers...

More like the good silver. Check to see if the White House inventory is missing any serving items of gold and/or silver and good dishes replaced with plated stuff. And check the staff to see if they are missing any gold teeth.

[jmowreader]

34. Dude!

She was a small woman WHO WAS CREMATED. The cheap-ass urns my mom chose for her and dad's remains are smaller than a shoebox. (Somewhat humorous story: when my sisters, brother and I went to make the final arrangements at the funeral home for mom, the very nice lady who was helping us started showing us all these really nice urns. I piped up, "ma'am, don't bother. We want the very cheapest urn you have. She would have wanted it that way." Funeral advisor gets this weird look on her face. Siblings all broke out laughing. We spent the next hour telling the lady just how cheap my mother was all her life.)

[halfulglas]

73. Suspicious business, but no easy access, unless there is a trapdoor to get to the coffin.

You don't want to get a minibulldozer in every few months to get to the coffin to access the papers.

[bringthePaine]

18. fuck him - "clear and present danger" must be imprisoned pending judicial resolution

[onenote]

63. He has to be charged first before he can be imprisoned.

[70sEraVet]

19. Too bad. That would have a GREAT Storage Wars episode!!!

[Vinca]

32. That's what I thought: "Storage Wars: Top Secret Edition."

[bucolic_frolic]

20. The good stuff was squirreled away long ago

More missing material could be anywhere by this time. All the storage units in FL, NJ, NY. Properties, burials. Thumb drives.

[wnylib]

56. Maybe the FBI should use the equipment that

archeologists use for discovering what's hidden in ancient burial mounds. Fly over Trump's properties and Ivana's grave site to look for stolen files.

[NullTuples]

21. NOW can all his properties be searched? Surely there's probable cause at this point?

[intrepidity]

39. One would think. Grrrrr. nt

[bluestarone]

36. CLASSIFIED items?? Plus a OUTSIDE fucking team?

Handling classified items??? WTF? TFG needs to be questioned UNDER OATH about everything. Then put this fucker AWAY for good!! (cause we ALL know he will PERJURE himself on every fucking question he answers!

[Jack the Greater]

41. An "outside team" searched for classified documents?

Really? Just any ol' outside team would do, I guess.

[Botany]

42. The mother fucker is still hiding the top secret documents he stole

Pick his ass up now.

[BootinUp]

43. He probably has more. Nt

[wiggs]

47. Rule #1 wrt GOP: if they admit to anything, the full truth is much worse. nt

[Deep State Witch]

48. Better Be Looking

At his Virginia property, too.

[truthisfreedom]

51. Why the f was dump allowed to conduct his own search?

Why didn’t the justice department do it?

[onenote]

64. DOJ was invited to observe the search but declined the invitation.

[Corktown]

54. Where Was the DOJ?

Why wasn't the DOJ conducting this search months ago?

I thought I read in a thread here some time ago that after finding all the classified documents that they did in the original Mar-A-Lago search, that opened the door legally to searching all his properties, and much, much more. The "more" part involved actions that went beyond searches, possibly to include asset forfeiture and freezing of financials, but I might have remembered that part wrong.

I know that a matter with the historical implications that this has involves a mountain of moving parts and requires masterful "juggling" of same, but this doesn't help bolster the argument that DOJ is doing as robust an investigation as possible .....

[Dysfunctional]

58. I would like to know what the classified documents were about.

I wrote and coded a TOP SECRET NSA codeword document every night I worked overseas. That would be 18 months working 6 nights a week for 5-6 hours. I figure that would be about 450 documents. I bet I could have sold all those documents to the Soviet Union for maybe a buck and a half and 20 years in Leavenworth.

[onenote]

65. DOJ doesn't care about what you or i want to know about the substance of classified docs.

Nor should they.

[Dysfunctional]

71. I was just wondering how many were actually worth selling.

I translated a classified document that has been declassified. It was about Pyricularia Oryzae, a disease of rice crops. It was just a study of the disease by Russian scientists. I checked some studies by American scientists and their reports were basically the same as the Russians'. Some people just like to think that they are important and classify everything.

[republianmushroom]

61. 22 months and counting DoJ

[purr-rat beauty]

70. We all know he's been laundering for decades

collected blackmail, doing shady deals behind closed doors, spreading lies and hate

how is this a surprise, if it's found here it can be anywhere with him.

[EarthFirst]

72. That shit is stashed all over the country on his various properties...

With near certainty.

[jmowreader]

77. Which is why..

A warrant entitling the DoJ to search all his properties would be lawful.

[Sparky 1]

78. When are they going to figure out he's an enemy to the US?

[twodogsbarking]

79. Seems like probable cause for the FBI to search every one of Trump's properties.