Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutors questioned at least one witness after an employee at Mar-a-Lago drained the Florida resort’s pool in October and ended up flooding a room full of computer servers that maintained surveillance video, according to a leak to CNN.
Jack Smith has been investigating Trump after he stored presidential records at Mar-a-Lago and whether the former president tried to obstruct the probe.
The IT equipment and servers were not damaged by the flooding, however, federal prosecutors still found it suspicious.
Since the flooding happened after Trump received a subpoena for classified records and surveillance footage, prosecutors may use it to build an obstruction conspiracy case, CNN reported.
CNN reported:
An employee at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence drained the resort’s swimming pool last October and ended up flooding a room where computer servers containing surveillance video logs were kept, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
At least one witness has been asked by prosecutors about the flooded server room as part of the federal investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents, according to one of the sources.
The incident, which has not been previously reported, came roughly two months after the FBI retrieved hundreds of classified documents from the Florida residence and as prosecutors obtained surveillance footage to track how White House records were moved around the resort. Prosecutors have been examining any effort to obstruct the Justice Department’s investigation after Trump received a subpoena in May 2022 for classified documents.
Prosecutors have heard testimony that the IT equipment in the room was not damaged in the flood, according to one source.
Yet the flooded room as well as conversations and actions by Trump’s employees while the criminal investigation bore down on the club has caught the attention of prosecutors. The circumstances may factor into a possible obstruction conspiracy case, multiple sources tell CNN, as investigators try to determine whether the events of last year around Mar-a-Lago indicate that Trump or a small group of people working for him, took steps to try to interfere with the Justice Department’s evidence-gathering.
President Trump’s lawyers on Monday met with Justice Department officials on the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case a couple weeks after requesting a meeting.
According to CBS News, the decision whether to indict Trump on federal charges is imminent.
“Several sources with knowledge of the investigation believe that a charging decision in the documents case is imminent, and Trump lawyers in recent days were expected to meet at some point with the Justice Department to talk through where things stand and to potentially lay out their concerns about the prosecutors’ efforts so far.” CBS reported.
Trump’s lawyers John Rowley and James Trusty arrived to the Justice Department at 10 am ET on Monday and met with officials for two hours, according to reports.
President Trump later Monday suggested federal charges are imminent after his lawyers met with DOJ officials.