Former President Donald Trump had over 300 classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate when the FBI executed its search warrant two weeks ago, according to a report from the New York Times.
“In total, the government has recovered more than 300 documents with classified markings from Mr. Trump since he left office,” the Times reported Monday.
An earlier search of the premises, conducted with the permission of Trump’s team, yielded about 150 classified documents, NYT reporters said.
The contents of the documents and materials seized by the FBI agents during their search remain unclear.
“Mr. Trump went through the boxes himself in late 2021, according to multiple people briefed on his efforts, before turning them over,” the report said. “The highly sensitive nature of some of the material in the boxes prompted archives officials to refer the matter to the Justice Department, which within months had convened a grand jury investigation.”
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28 Responses
Obama has much more than this……but then Trump is White, I think the democrats have an issue with this…..
1. Why the sensationalized headline?
2. Who cares? He was the president after all
3. The former president has already stated that all the documents in his possession were declassified… So it’s not even true
No shock here: the liar, fraud, phony is also a thief
Why is YWN part of this misinformation campaign! You should be ashamed of yourself! He has been the best president for us yidden and instead of muting this nonsense investigations and smear campaigns your posting articles where the vast majority of your readers aren’t interested in these phony investigations and reports. It’s all irrelevant when there’s a two tier system in place
The Times is in cahoots with the Biden administration and the DNC. None of them can be trusted to utter a word of truth. I don’t have enough time to type the lengthy list of dishonesty accumulated by these liars.
CT: I am offended by Trump’s presentations, mean tweets, etc. But you will struggle to find honesty among the Biden administration and the Dems. The Times just blares all their garbage.
CTLawyer so is Obama Clinton and Biden. Where’s their witch hunt.
Who is Sandy Berger?
Sara Rivka,
It’s not because he’s white, it’s because he’s a republican (they hate Clarence Thomas)
If he took them home as President then he defacto declassified them.
This is all intended to
1. Tie him up in legal proceedings
2. Make him look bad to independents
3. Mine all the documents in his home looking for dirt on him
Just like all the hysterical stories about him in the past, this will be another nothing burger.
And Hillary was supposed to be a problem.
Obama has zero, he went through the proper channels,like every president up until this immoral criminal, the National Archives have and control them.
said the new york times, lol
CTLAWYER, are you referring to Biden or Obama? or my favorit liar of all time Bill Clinton?
Old case over audio tapes in Bill Clinton’s sock drawer could impact Mar-a-Lago search dispute
By John Solomon
Updated: August 17, 2022 – 8:56pm
Article
Dig In
When it comes to the National Archives, history has a funny way of repeating itself. And legal experts say a decade-old case over audio tapes that Bill Clinton once kept in his sock drawer may have significant impact over the FBI search of Melania Trump’s closet and Donald Trump’s personal office.
The case in question is titled Judicial Watch v. National Archives and Records Administration and it involved an effort by the conservative watchdog to compel the Archives to forcibly seize hours of audio recordings that Clinton made during his presidency with historian Taylor Branch.
For pop culture, the case is most memorable for the revelation that the 42nd president for a time stored the audio tapes in his sock drawer at the White House. The tapes became the focal point of a 2009 book that Branch wrote.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington D.C. ultimately rejected Judicial Watch’s suit by concluding there was no provision in the Presidential Records Act to force the National Archives to seize records from a former president.
But Jackson’s ruling — along with the Justice Department’s arguments that preceded it — made some other sweeping declarations that have more direct relevance to the FBI’s decision to seize handwritten notes and files Trump took with him to Mar-a-Lago. The most relevant is that a president’s discretion on what are personal vs. official records is far-reaching and solely his, as is his ability to declassify or destroy records at will.
“Under the statutory scheme established by the PRA, the decision to segregate personal materials from Presidential records is made by the President, during the President’s term and in his sole discretion,” Jackson wrote in her March 2012 decision, which was never appealed.
“Since the President is completely entrusted with the management and even the disposal of Presidential records during his time in office, it would be difficult for this Court to conclude that Congress intended that he would have less authority to do what he pleases with what he considers to be his personal records,” she added.
You can read the full ruling here:
File
memorandum opinion.pdf
The judge noted a president could destroy any record he wanted during his tenure and his only responsibility was to inform the Archives.
As to whether records a president concluded were personal can be forcibly seized after he leaves office, the court concluded it was unreasonable to force NARA to go get the tapes
“Because the audiotapes are not physically in the government’s possession, defendant submits that it would be required to seize them directly from President Clinton in order to assume custody and control over them,” Jackson noted. “Defendant considers this to be an ‘extraordinary request’ that is unfounded, contrary to the PRA’s express terms, and contrary to traditional principles of administrative law. The Court agrees.”
That defendant was the same Justice Department that authorized the raid on Trump’s estate. You can read their arguments a decade earlier here:
File
Hearing Transcript.pdf
Jackson also concluded that a decision to challenge a president’s decision lies solely with the National Archives and can’t be reviewed by a court. If the Archives wants to challenge a decision, that agency and the attorney general can initiate an enforcement mechanism under the law, but it is a civil procedure and has no criminal penalty, she noted.
The search warrant the FBI enforced sought two types of records: classified materials and records created during the Trump presidency. Trump has been adamant the records he took to Mar-a-Lago were both declassified and deemed personal by him.
Some government lawyers reached out privately to Just the News in recent days questioning the use of the FBI to collect presidential records, citing Jackson’s ruling and suggesting it was a civil and not criminal matter where deference to Trump is required by law.
On the classification issue, both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama signed executive orders — which remain in force to this day — declaring that presidents have sweeping authority to declassify secrets and do not have to follow the mandatory declassification procedures all other government officials do.
The Jackson ruling and the declassification powers have left some experts worried the FBI raid was heavy-handed under the current laws.
Kevin Brock, former assistant FBI director for intelligence, told Just the News the bureau’s search warrant was overly broad and went beyond what the FBI manual for agents recommended. “Specificity is important in order to protect fourth amendment rights from exuberant government overreach designed to find whatever they can,” he told Just the News.
Brock added he did not believe DOJ and FBI had authority to criminalize the retention of presidential records.
The warrant “apparently makes a novel legal assertion that any presidential record kept by a former president is against the law,” Brock said. “You have to wonder what the other living former presidents think about that. They have the right and, apparently, clear desire to remain silent.”
Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch who was on the losing end of the Clinton sock drawer case, said he believes Jackson’s ruling could have a profound impact on the coming legal battles over the Trump search.
“The government, the lawyer for the Archives, said, ‘You know what? If documents are in the former President’s hands, where they’re presumptively personal, we just, you know, we presume they’re personal,'” Fitton said.
“The Justice Department previously had told us in response to a question about Bill Clinton: ‘Tough luck, it’s his.’ But they changed their mind for Donald Trump?” he asked. “… The law and court decision suggests that Trump is right. And frankly, based on this analysis, Trump should get every single document they took from him back. It’s all personal records.”
I am infinitely more concerned & desperate to have each & everyone of Hillary’s 33,000 bleached emails reconstituted and brought to justice
Trump was not president after noon on January 20th and even while president never had the right to unilaterally declassify documents without input from the agencies involved. Declassified documents bear a stamp “declassified”. Those seized did not. The documents are not his, they are property of the US Government not to be removed from government offices under any circumstances.
The claim about Obama having taken millions of pages is false. The documents in question have been transferred to a secure Federal facility in Chicago where he can examine but not remove them.
There is so much falsehood circulating on the internet.
Does anyone really care..if some folders which no one will ever look at are buried in a safe. Maybe he is an idiot for taking them , are these the type that put our country in any danger.. what a waste of gov resources
“Classified” is the lowest level of security and is not necessarily a security threat. I think a lot of this is media hype that is intended to try to prevent Trump from running in 2024. I don’t think it’ll work.
Obama had 30 million & that’s not including the millions they shredded suddenly! Then besides that when they left the White House it had to be fumigated cuz of the roaches!
Yaakov Doe, you have such a wild imagination that conjures up fantasy laws.
Hopefully, when you grow up and become an adult, you can continue to use your skills.
They had been “classified”, but Trump was totally within his rights as president to declassify them. What is needed for the Democrats to “win” is to find out Trump kept a copy of the formula and other data needed to hack the codes needed to fire the nuclear weapons (or something along those lines). The government is infamous for not declassifying stuff until somebody starts complaining, so it his highly likely that most of what Trump claims to have declassified no longer warranted being declassified (by way of example of over-classification, Allied intercepts of German wireless messages were kept “classified” until the late 20th century not since they needed to be secret but since they proved the Allies had full knowledge of the Holocaust while it was happening).
The headling “SHOCK” implies the writer of the headline is either a fool, or a Democrat.
You Trump apologists sound more lame than a horse with 5 broken legs.
Benj169, that’s quite a serious allegation. What’s the source of your information? Documentation? A stack of a million sheets of paper would be 300 feet high.
Killary Clinton had 30,000 classified documents on her private computer. What was done about THAT?
The blatant hypocritical witch hunt is mind-boggling.
No, the “shock” over here is that you fools at YWN will quote the New York Slmes as if it’s halocha l’moshe m’Sinai, when in reality, it’s not even worth the paper it’s written on. What a shame that you people have fallen for their garbage! No wonder why your readership is in the toilet! Just like theirs.
Halt kup for a second here because I need to teach you something, that probably you will not know because you read the leftist media.
When the law is that the president is the one AND ONLY ONE who could declassify documents, and you have scum of the earth bureaucrats who think they know better, it’s a major problem! If the president declassified the documents, then they are declassified. It can’t be changed.
I guarantee you if this went to the Supreme Court, which it might, President Trump will win. This is clear in the Constitution.
It makes no difference what some
fardurbina bureaucrat says.
SHOCK? If I wanted to read misleading headlines I would read the schmutz NYT. I expect better from YWN.
So YWN, Before you post anything make your Research .
People hate trump so much cause hes successful ( he might be crazy) But hes awesome and our country didnt look like as good when he was president in years,
people just cant take someone when hes so successful .
biden is good ha? or obama ? or clinton ? or maybe hunters computer u have info on that ? oh no go make your Research.
they only hate him cause hes so freekin good…..
if u like biden go get vaccinated and triple boosterd evrey day. i mean give me a break
trump 2024 or someone really good that knows to do good
thanks
Shlomo H
That’s 24 paragraphs wow!
I would trust anytime former President Trump having classified documents over the semi senile President Biden.