Another day, another leak to the Washington Post.
The Washington Post is now reporting (after the midterms) that the DOJ believes Trump took his White House records to Mar-a-Lago as ‘mementos.’
WaPo is reporting that Trump never intended to sell or use the documents as leverage.
Of course we have known this the entire time and WaPo is finally admitting the FBI raid was all a political ploy.
“A review by agents and prosecutors found no discernible business interest in the Mar-a-Lago documents, people familiar with the matter said,” The Post explains. “Federal agents and prosecutors have come to believe former president Donald Trump’s motive for allegedly taking and keeping classified documents was largely his ego and a desire to hold on to the materials as trophies or mementos, according to people familiar with the matter.”
“FBI interviews with witnesses so far,” The Post adds, citing their sources, “also do not point to any nefarious effort by Trump to leverage, sell, or use the government secrets. Instead, the former president seemed motivated by a more basic desire not to give up what he believed was his property, these people said.”
The Post also said the “analysis of Trump’s likely motive in allegedly keeping the documents is not, strictly speaking, an element of determining whether he or anyone around him committed a crime, or should be charged with one. Justice Department policy dictates that prosecutors file criminal charges in cases in which they believe a crime was committed and the evidence is strong enough to lead to a conviction that will hold up on appeal. But as a practical matter, motive is an important part of how prosecutors assess cases and decide whether to file criminal charges.”
There is no underlying crime which is why DOJ prosecutors are trying to get Trump in a perjury trap by forcing him to confirm the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago in a sworn affidavit.
The Justice Department asked Judge Cannon to compel Trump to affirm or dispute the records seized under penalty of perjury in a 20-page unsealed filing on Monday dated November 8.
“The Special Master has received an affidavit of accuracy from the government. Since the Court appointed the Special Master to ensure fairness, integrity, and even-handedness in the review process […], Plaintiff should be required to verify or correct the property inventory just as the government has done,” the Justice Department’s National Security Division chief Jay I. Bratt wrote in a 20-page filing, Law & Crime reported.
“Now that Plaintiff has reviewed the seized materials and claimed the overwhelming majority of them to be his personal records, considerations of fairness, integrity, and evenhandedness require Plaintiff to do what the government has done — namely, verify the property inventory or correct it if he believes it to be in error,” the filing said. “A fair process requires both parties to ensure that the Special Master is adjudicating disputes over property actually seized from Mar-a-Lago.”