Trump staff tell FBI "Trump was a pack rat who had been personally overseeing his collection of White House records since even before leaving Washington and had been reluctant to return anything."
Former Trump WH lawyer Herschmann warned Trump late 2021 he "could face legal liability if he did not return government materials he had taken with him when he left office"..."particularly any classified material."
In returning some documents to National Archives in January 2022, "Trump had overseen the packing process himself with great secrecy, declining to show some items even to top aides."
Trump's attorney told DOJ "Trump had authorized him" to allow DOJ to see storage room (after DOJ asked) "but they were explicitly prohibited from opening any of the approximately fifty to fifty-five boxes that they observed."
via DOJ filing
8. Exhibit seven
Trump's cooperating with Archives, FBI broke down after Tom Fitton began advising he was wrong to return documents in January and should not give up any additional records.
Trump's self-incriminating admissions on Truth Social
Several of them.👇
10. Exhibit nine
"What we are talking about here, in the main, are Presidential records in the hands of the 45th President."
via Trump attorney Christopher Kise*
*Yes, those are the words of Trump's own lawyer before a federal court.
11. Exhibit ten
Enormous quantity, explosive content (e.g., intel on foreign country's military nuclear program), location of documents with classified markings (including intermingled with personal belongings).
National Archives, Department of Justice Chief of Counterintelligence, and Congress repeatedly place Trump on notice of illegality in retaining the documents.
It’s important to understand why DOJ indictment of John Bolton seems very different than Letitia James and Jim Comey indictments.
1. Biden administration opened the criminal investigation of John Bolton in 2022. It's been detailed investigative work ever since.
CNN⤵️
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2. Yes, the Biden DOJ did not indict Bolton. But they also did not close the investigation.
Plus CNN reports: “Unlike prosecutions brought against Comey and James, the Bolton case has maintained the support of career prosecutors and investigators.”
3. The Bolton Indictment is signed by career prosecutors (unlike James and Comey indictments).
Federalized Texas and California Guard to Portland is a "DIRECT CONTRAVENTION" of court's TRO from Saturday.
Both on 12406 statute and Tenth Amendment grounds.
2/ Your reminder that Judge Immergut was appointed to the bench by President Trump.
3/ The new Temporary Restraining Order bars the deployment by the Trump administration of any federalized National Guard -- eg California or Texas National Guard -- in Portland.
@charlie_savage @EricSchmittNYT 3/ "The administration has also stressed that about 100,000 Americans annually die from overdoses.
However, the focus of the ..attacks has been boats from Venezuela. The surge of overdose deaths...has been driven by fentanyl that drug trafficking experts say comes from Mexico"
With terrific team, I just published large study looking at all court cases involving the Trump administration.
Shows basis for courts no longer giving a so-called "presumption of regularity" (a legal doctrine involving a strong benefit of the doubt) to the administration.
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