“Fruits of Crime” Apparently Trump was holding on to source information for reasons of Kompromat including information about another country’s nuclear activity.
MSNBC's Joyce Vance said the heavily redacted document revealed their (DoJ) concerns that witnesses could face threats as part of an effort to obstruct their investigation.
"One very interesting tidbit we get from the legal memo that DOJ submitted to unseal the redacted version of the affidavit is what I think is the first effort to quantify the number of cooperating witnesses that DOJ had when they obtained this search warrant," said Vance, a former U.S. Attorney. "They're talking about the need to protect their witnesses from any sort of potential harm, and they say that there are a significant number of civilian witnesses. So we don't know -- is that five? Is that 10?"
www.rawstory.com/...
HCS = HUMINT Control System = a sensitive compartmented information (SCI) control system designed to protect intelligence information from clandestine human sources. 2/
FISA = Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act = a dissemination control designed to protect intelligence information derived from the collection of information authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or "FISC." 3/
ORCON = Originator Controlled = This marking indicates that dissemination beyond pre-approved U.S. entities requires ORIGINATOR APPROVAL. 4/
NOFORN = NOT RELEASABLE to foreign nationals/governments/non-US Citizens. Information that may
not be released in any form to foreign governments, foreign nationals, foreign organizations, or non U.S. citizens without permission of the originator.5/
SI = Special Intelligence = an SCI control system designed to protect technical and intelligence information derived from MONITORING OF FOREIGN COMMUNICATIONS SIGNALS by other than the intended recipients. 6/
And that’s just what the found in the boxes he gave back. Also included is a letter from Evan Corcoran pushing back on DoJ citing 18 USC 1924 - which wasn’t used on the warrant. Excellent footnote here explaining what I’ve been saying about why it wasn’t used. 7/
And the letter from Corcoran 8/
We also learned what the lock was for. I was confused about why they’d ask him to lock it, but not go and get it. It was part of an effort to preserve the evidence and keep it safe. Perhaps it was after that order that things were moved around, hence the 1519 citation. 9/
Kash Patel is mentioned with regard to declassification being moot. 10/
Finally, there were Donald’s HANDWRITTEN notes on several of these classified documents. I wonder if we will ever find out what he’s been scribbling on our national secrets. END/
• • •
Donald Trump is losing every single one of his sh*ts over on Truth Social following the release of a redacted version of the Mar-a-Lago search warrant affidavit on Friday. The twice impeached one-termer is having a meltdown, and someone had better give him back his binky, or there will be catsup thrown all over the corridors of Mar-a-Lago.
Trump, I suspect, wants to know who has flipped on him. The affidavit is heavily redacted. That's true. But we don't need an armed MAGA army of meatheads descending on witnesses homes.
crooksandliars.com/...
- After losing the 2008 GOP presidential nod, Giuliani moved to Trump's Mar-a-Lago club, a book says.
- A tunnel under the Palm Beach, Florida, estate let Giuliani travel back and forth unseen, it adds.
- His ex-wife says he began drinking heavily and had "clinical depression" after leaving the race.
Rudy Giuliani at one time secretly stayed at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club, where he used an underground tunnel to go back and forth from the resort while he was depressed and drinking a lot after falling short in the 2008 Republican presidential primaries, a forthcoming book says.
In the book, "Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America's Mayor," Andrew Kirtzman describes Giuliani's personal struggles after he left the GOP contest following a dismal showing in the Florida primary. The book features commentary from his third ex-wife, Judith Giuliani.
Giuliani "dreamed of becoming president from a young age, [but] blew his big moment when it arrived," Kirtzman wrote, according to an early copy of the book obtained by The Guardian.
www.businessinsider.com/...
Why it matters: The released affidavit sheds light on new details of the criminal investigation, including the probable cause that warranted the search.
Driving the news: The unsealed affidavit revealed that 14 of the 15 boxes retrieved from Trump earlier this year by the National Archives and Record Administration contained 184 documents with classification markings.
- Of those documents, 67 were marked as "confidential," 92 were marked as "secret," and 25 documents were marked as "top secret."
- "Of most significant concern was that highly classified records were unfoldered, intermixed with other records, and otherwise unproperly [sic] identified," per the affidavit.
- The DOJ also said that "there is probable cause to believe that additional documents that contain classified NDI [national defense information] or that are Presidential records subject to record retention requirements currently remain at the PREMISES.”
- The DOJ added there is also "probable cause" to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found at Mar-a-Lago.
- The DOJ affidavit said that the FBI believed that Trump's storage room, residential suite, Pine Hall, the "45 Office" and other spaces potentially held national defense information.
Prior to releasing the affidavit, the DOJ also released a 14-page document explaining the reasoning for why releasing the affidavit without redactions would harm the investigation and could jeopardize the safety of witnesses and agents involved.
- “[T]he materials the government marked for redaction … must remain sealed to protect the safety and privacy of a significant number of civilian witnesses, in addition to law enforcement personnel, as well as to protect the integrity of the ongoing investigation and to avoid disclosure of grand jury material in violation of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure,” the document reads.
- It also notes that the Florida Judge “found that disclosure of the Affidavit would likely result in witnesses being ‘quickly and broadly identified over social media and other communication channels, which could lead to them being harassed and intimidated.’”
DOJ added that the court found the affidavit contains “matters of significant public concern” and concluded that “the present record” does not “justif[y] keeping the entire Affidavit under seal.”
State of play: The previously unsealed search warrant and inventory revealed the FBI removed around 20 boxes, including 11 sets of classified information from the Trump property, including some marked as "top secret."
- House Republicans have pressed for more information from the Justice Department and FBI in the wake of the search.
- Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart said last Thursday that it was "very important" that the public have as "much information" as it can about the search at Trump's Florida residence.
- “I find that the Government has met its burden of showing a compelling reason/good cause to seal portions of the Affidavit because disclosure would reveal (1) the identities of witnesses, law enforcement agents, and uncharged parties, (2) the investigation’s strategy, direction, scope, sources, and methods, and (3) grand jury information protected by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure,” Reinhart wrote in his order that parts of the affidavit be redacted.
The DOJ argued for the affidavit to remain sealed, contending that its release "would provide a road map and suggest next investigative steps we are about to take," per the Washington Post.
What we’re watching: There’s been a shift in Trumpworld over the last few days with regard to the search, particularly after conservative John Solomon published a May 10 letter from the National Archives that revealed Trump took more than 700 pages of highly classified material with him after leaving office.
- The letter also showed an extensive back and forth between Trump’s lawyers and the government, in which the government seemed to have determined Trump was either misleading them deliberately or not being fully forthcoming, and that the FBI and NARA determined the materials are not covered by executive privilege, contrary to the claims of Trump’s legal team.
- Many Trump allies have grown quiet in recent days after initially leaning hard into their criticism of the search. There’s a renewed weariness that has seeped into some of the private conversations among Trump advisers and those in his orbit as more of these facts are released to the public, adding to a growing feeling there may be some justification for the search.
www.axios.com/...