An employee at Mar-a-Lago reportedly told federal investigators that former President Donald Trump gave a directive to move boxes to his residency in the run-up to the FBI raid in August.
Investigators were able to corroborate the account with other witness testimony and security-camera footage showing people moving the boxes, sources told the Washington Post. Trump made the request to move the boxes following a May subpoena.
DOJ ASKS SUPREME COURT TO REJECT TRUMP’S REQUEST TO BLOCK USE OF CLASSIFIED MATERIALS
“The Biden administration has weaponized law enforcement and fabricated a Document Hoax in a desperate attempt to retain political power,” Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich said. “Every other President has been given time and deference regarding the administration of documents.”
Budowich refrained from commenting on the specifics of the report, the Washington Post claimed.
Initially, the witness denied handling sensitive material, but the worker’s story shifted during follow-ups with investigators, according to the report. The employee has reportedly been interviewed multiple times and is considered a key witness.
Following the raid, Trump tore into the FBI, blasting the bureau for rummaging through the closet of his wife, Melania Trump. FBI agents collected documents from the personal quarters of Mar-a-Lago, according to court documents. Authorities also combed through a storage room where many of the documents were stashed at one point.
Around the time Trump reportedly gave the order to move boxes into his residency, federal investigators issued a subpoena in May seeking additional documents they believed were holed up in Mar-a-Lago, court documents showed.
Following a January document exchange between Trump and the National Archives and Records Administration, officials said they discovered material with classified markings and referred the matter to the Justice Department. Investigators at the DOJ believed there was additional classified material at Mar-a-Lago and pursued the May subpoena in response.
Federal officials arrived in Mar-a-Lago in June and obtained additional documents. Trump reportedly made an appearance during the exchange. A lawyer for Trump signed a document in June attesting that all the classified material had been turned over to the best of her knowledge. She has reportedly since spoken with investigators.
After that document exchange, the DOJ became convinced that numerous documents were still holed up in Trump’s Palm Beach resort. This led to the FBI’s Aug. 8 search and seizure.
The DOJ is investigating possible violations of the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice in its inquiry about the Mar-a-Lago document tranche, according to court documents.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Since January, the government has recovered at least 325 records with classification markings from Mar-a-Lago, including 162 “SECRET,” 103 “CONFIDENTIAL,” and 60 “TOP SECRET” documents, NBC News reported.
Trump has denounced the raid as an “unAmerican break-in” and has vehemently denied any wrongdoing. “There is no ‘crime’ having to do with the storage of documents at Mar-a-Lago, only in the minds of the Radical Left Lunatics who are destroying our Country, and were just forced by the Courts to give me back much of what they took (STOLE?) during their unprecedented and unnecessary break in of my home,” Trump said in a Truth Social post Wednesday night. “The Clinton ‘Socks Case,’ which is law, says it all belongs to ‘the President,’ NO CRIME, and the Presidential Record Act is simple, ‘negotiate,’ and NO CRIME. These people are CRAZY!!!”
Trump has also said he declassified the material snatched by FBI officials, claiming a president can declassify material “even by thinking about it.” However, lawyers for Trump have said in court that the special master, who has since been appointed to look for privileged materials in the seized documents, should “possess a Top Secret/SCI security clearance” to examine the tranche.
