It has been nearly 5 weeks since armed FBI agents laid siege to former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, absconding with dozens of boxes of government records that the former Commander in Chief has claimed were declassified during his time in office.
Since that time, the legal wrangling over the documents has grown rather intense, with the DOJ and The Don duking it out over “special masters”, search warrants, affidavits, and the like.
Now, a judge in the case has released more information from the aforementioned affidavit, detailing another twist to the tale.
A heavily redacted version of the affidavit was made public last month, but the Justice Department requested permission to show more of it after lawyers for Trump revealed the existence of a June grand jury subpoena that sought video footage from cameras in the vicinity of the Mar-a-Lago storage room.
“Because those aspects of the grand jury’s investigation have now been publicly revealed, there is no longer any reason to keep them sealed (i.e. redacted) in the filings in this matter,” department lawyers wrote.
So, what exactly can we glean from the disclosure?
The newly visible portions of the FBI agent’s affidavit show that the FBI on June 24 subpoenaed for the footage after a visit weeks earlier to Mar-a-Lago in which agents observed 50 to 55 boxes of records in the storage room at the property. The Trump Organization provided a hard drive on July 6 in response to the subpoena, the affidavit says.
The footage will likely be used by the DOJ in an attempt to suggest that Trump or his surrogates were looking to “obstruct” the probe.
Of course, if the former President’s declassification claims are true, then the claim of obstruction flies out the window.
