A Justice Department Show of Force in the Mar-a-Lago Case

The Justice Department’s filing Tuesday evening in former President Trump’s federal court effort to slow the Mar-a-Lago investigation presents a remarkable show of strength and confidence in the ongoing probe.

The document’s legal arguments are not particularly engaging, as they respond to uninteresting, meritless legal challenges from the former president. Its factual summary, by contrast, is a rip-roaringly great read, one in which the department tells the story of its investigation in some detail. Some of this story it has told before, but some it has not. There are a lot of new details in here, and nearly all of them are bad for the former president.

Some of these flesh out the volume and nature of the classified material Trump hoarded at Mar-a-Lago. But other details, more importantly in our view, flesh out questions of intent and mens rea that are key to all of the statutes at issue in the warrant. While the document goes out of its way not to discuss Trump’s personal behavior, it also includes material specifically suggestive of the degree to which the department has collected material incriminating Trump personally.

All of which suggests some preliminary answers to key questions: How big a problem is the Mar-a-Lago investigation for Trump? How long is this going to take? Specifically, as we shall explain, it suggests that the investigation is a very big problem for Trump, one in which he appears to have a great deal of exposure. But it also suggests that the investigation is going to take a while—a point on which a careful reading of the filing leaves little doubt.

The release of this damaging material by the Justice Department is almost entirely a result of Trump’s own actions—or at least those of his legal team. At each stage of this investigation, including the search itself, the Justice Department has been careful to resist releasing additional information about the probe—only for Trump to open the door for the department to weigh in by complaining about the investigation. This one is no exception.