Found! Dozens of Damning Documents about Trump’s Hoarding of Classified Documents!
In an interview with Marc Elias the other day, Dan Goldman made a number of alarming claims. He said that before the release of Jack Smith’s January 6 report, “we didn’t really know about … the extensive litigation that the Special Counsel had to go through just to get this evidence.” That is, Goldman admitted that he missed the unsealing, in October, of the very documents Jack Smith cited to describe that process (which I wrote about at the time). Goldman missed the opportunity to make a stink about this before the election.
Goldman also wondered “if Elon Musk and X, while he has owned it, has ever not cooperated in the same way [as they did in response to a warrant for Trump’s Twitter account] in a different case.” We know the answer to that: according to an opinion Chief Judge Boasberg unsealed (and first spotted by Kyle Cheney, who played a key role in liberating the Executive Privilege dispute), from January to March of last year, Xitter refused to turn over mere subscriber records in what sounds like a leak investigation.
Much later in the interview (after 19:00), Goldman said,
Volume Two of the report is going to provide a lot more information that we don’t know. The litigation in the January 6 case, including the memo outlining all of the evidence, has been so extensive that, as we see from Volume One, there really isn’t that much that we didn’t know. There was also an entire Congressional Committee that did this investigation. This has been exhaustively investigated. And yes they did get more evidence because they had grand jury power. They got more witnesses to speak than the January 6 Committee did. But we’ve known about that.
We know very little about what the back-and-forth was with the National Archives, the FBI, Donald Trump and his team, others. And one of the things that has jumped out at me in that case is that in one of the filings, the Department of Justice, Special Counsel, said, that there evidence includes why Donald Trump retained the information illegally, and what he was planning to do with it. [my emphasis]
From there, Goldman went on to call for Merrick Garland to dismiss the case, which I’m not sure Garland can do without some judge going along (which was the hold up in the Mike Flynn case).
Now, as I have laid out, Jack Smith eschewed the opportunity to make new information available in Volume One of the report. For example, he didn’t explain why an investigation into Trump’s fundraising and spending ended without charges. Based on what we’ve seen in Volume One, I doubt we’d get the kinds of details Robert Hur provided in his 388-page report, describing every document that wasn’t charged and why not. I doubt we’d learn why the FBI believed there was a tie between a grant of clemency for Roger Stone and a document, classified Secret, about Emmanuel Macron, both found in Donald Trump’s own desk drawer. I doubt we’d learn why Trump compiled low-level classified information into a document with messages from a book author, a religious leader, and a pollster.
And I doubt we’d learn what Trump was planning to do with those classified documents.
I want to see the report. But I doubt it’ll include what Goldman hopes it will.
But it is also the case that we have already gotten a great deal of additional information about the investigation.
It’s not the case, for example, that “we know very little about what the back-and-forth was with the National Archives, the FBI, Donald Trump and his team, others.” This filing describes that process at length, relying on both dozens of documents that Trump himself liberated and 302s from those involved, including a key White House Office of Records Management official and Mark Meadows. This section describes Meadows’ involvement, which (along with actions taken by a former Trump White House Counsel, probably Pat Philbin) led to the involvement of Biden White House Counsel Jonathan Su, the basis of Trump’s bogus claim that Biden’s White House pushed the investigation into Trump.
A succession of Trump PRA representatives corresponded with NARA without ever resolving any of NARA’s concerns about the boxes of Presidential records that had been identified as missing in January 2021. By the end of June 2021, NARA had still received no update on the boxes, despite repeated inquiries, and it informed the PRA representatives that the Archivist had directed NARA personnel to seek assistance from the Department of Justice (“DOJ”), “which is the necessary recourse when we are unable to obtain the return of improperly removed government records that belong in our custody.” Exhibit B at USA-00383980; see 44 U.S.C. § 2905(a) (providing for the Archivist to request the Attorney General to institute an action for the recovery of records). That message precipitated the involvement of Trump’s former White House Chief of Staff, who engaged the Archivist directly at the end of July. See Exhibit 4 Additional weeks passed with no results, and by the end of August 2021, NARA still had received nothing from Trump or his PRA representatives. Id. Independently, the House of Representatives had requested Presidential records from NARA, further heightening the urgency of NARA obtaining access to the missing boxes. Id. On August 30, the Archivist notified Trump’s former Chief of Staff that he would assume the boxes had been destroyed and would be obligated to report that fact to Congress, DOJ, and the White House. Id. The former Chief of Staff promptly requested a phone call with the Archivist. Id.
[snip]
Fall passes with little progress in retrieving the missing records. In September 2021, one of Trump’s PRA representatives expressed puzzlement over the suggestion that there were 24 boxes missing, asserting that only 12 boxes had been found in Florida. Exhibit 7 at USA00383682, USA-00383684. In an effort to resolve “the dispute over whether there are 12 or 24 boxes,” NARA officials discussed with Su the possibility of convening a meeting with two of Trump’s PRA representatives—the former Chief of Staff and the former Deputy White House Counsel—and “possibly” Trump’s former White House Staff Secretary. Id. at USA-00383682. On October 19, 2021, a call took place among WHORM Official 1, another WHORM employee, Trump’s former Chief of Staff, the former Deputy White House Counsel, and Su about the continued failure to produce Presidential records, but the call did not lead to a resolution. See Exhibit A at USA-00815672. Again, there was no complaint from either of Trump’s PRA representatives about Su’s participation in the call. Later in October, the former Chief of Staff traveled to the Mar-a-Lago Club to meet with Trump for another reason, but while there brought up the missing records to Trump and offered to help look for or review any that were there. Exhibit C at USA-00820510. Trump, however, was not interested in any assistance. Id. On November 21, 2021, another former member of Trump’s Administration traveled to Mar-a-Lago to speak with him about the boxes. Exhibit D at USA-00818227–USA-00818228. That individual warned Trump that he faced possible criminal exposure if he failed to return his records to NARA. Id
[my emphasis, links added]
Exhibit D, cited to support a description of a former Trump official who warned that Trump faced criminal exposure, links to this complete 302, from someone whose potty mouth resembles Eric Herschmann. It describes a bunch of things:
- How on November 21, 2021, he warned Trump to give the documents back: “Don’t give them a noble reason to indict you, because they will.”
- How a “total moron” who resembles Boris Epshteyn insinuated himself with Trump with claims of voter fraud and subsequently tried to use something, perhaps claims fed to credulous reporters that he was serving a legal function, to cover for his past activities ( a document Trump himself liberated shows call records between this person resembling Epshteyn and a person resembling Chief of Staff designate Susie Wiles).
- A February 2022 call in which someone resembling Tom Fitton told Trump he didn’t have to send documents back because of Fitton’s “Clinton Socks” ruling,
- A prediction that Walt Nauta would be pardoned if he were charged with lying to the FBI.
But it also describes an extended description of someone “unhinged” and “crazy” who first got access to the White House through the Member of Congress he worked for, who started the “declassified everything” claim when it first started appearing in the media, which is when Kash Patel made the claim.
Another dispute — about whether Jay Bratt threatened to retaliate against Stanley Woodward if he didn’t get Walt Nauta to cooperate — includes a long discussion about Kash’s testimony. It revealed how Kash tried to delay compliance with a grand jury subpoena indefinitely by hiring a lawyer already busy defending a January 6 seditionist, and when Kash did first testify, the aspiring FBI Director pled the Fifth repeatedly.
On Monday, September 19, 2022, the FBI personally served witness Kashyap “Kash” Patel with a grand jury subpoena, commanding him to appear on September 29, 2022. Prior to engaging with counsel, Patel contacted government counsel on Friday, September 23, 2022, to request a two-week extension. The government agreed to that extension and set his appearance for October 13, 2022. Thereafter, [Stan] Woodward contacted government counsel on September 27, 2022, explaining that he had just begun a lengthy jury trial–United States v. Rhodes et a., No. 22-cr-15 (D.D.C.)–but that Patel had retained him. On September 30, 2022, Woodward request an addition indefinite extension of Patel’s grand jury appearance until some point after the Rhodes trial concluded. (Ultimately, the verdict in the trial was not returned until November 29, 2022, approximately six weeks after Patel’s already-postponed appearance date of October 13, 2022.) The government was unwilling to consent to the indefinite extension that Woodward sought. Woodward, for his part, declined various alternatives offered by the government, including scheduling Patel’s grand jury appearance for Friday afternoons, when the Rhodes trial was not sitting, and a voluntary interview by prosecutors and agents over a weekend.
On October 7, 2022, Patel (through Woodward) filed a motion to quash his grand jury appearance, arguing that requiring Patel to appeal pursuant to the grand jury’s subpoena would violate his constitutional rights by depriving him of his counsel of choice, i.e., Woodward, who was occupied with a jury trial elsewhere in the courthouse. The Court denied the motion to quash on October 11, 2022, see In re Grand Jury No. 22-03 Subpoena 63-13, No. 22-gj-41, Minute Order (Oct. 11, 2022), and required Patel to appear as scheduled on October 13. See id. (“Mr Patel requests a delay of some unspecified time period in his testimony because his counsel, Stanley Woodward, will be engaged in the United States v. Rhodes trial, Case No. 22-cr-15, scheduled to last several weeks, with no promises as to when his counsel will still have time available. Mr. Patel retained Mr. Woodward on the attorney’s first day of jury selection in Rhodes when such circumstance made fully apparent that counsel would be unavailable during Mr. Patel’s scheduled grand jury testimony. In addition, the government has already demonstrated flexibility in meeting Patel’s scheduling needs . . . . Testifying before a grand jury is not a game of find-or-seek-a-better-time or catch-me-if-you-can, and a witness cannot indefinitely delay a proceeding based on his counsel’s convenience. . . .”).
Patel appeared before the grand jury on October 13, 2022, where he repeatedly declined to answer questions on the basis of the rights afforded to him by the Fifth Amendment. Thereafter, the government moved to compel Patel’s testimony. The Court granted the government’s motion to compel, contingent on the government offering statutory immunity. [my emphasis]
This is the same kind of extended discussion of the delays that Trump and his flunkies created that Goldman claimed, incorrectly, first became available in Volume One of Smith’s report. And it (plus details of Tim Parlatore’s efforts to stall ongoing searches) has been public since April.
Other disputes provided a bunch more information, including pictures, of where and how Trump stored the documents he withheld, including one of this box, in which Trump was storing a document classified Formerly Restricted (that is, a document pertaining to nuclear weapons), along with nine other documents, underneath a Christmas pillow and some bubble wrap (I annotated the photo to show that the documents charged in Counts 12 through 21 were found in it).
Here are discussions of what was hidden under the bubble wrap.
I tried to put these pictures in context in this post and this post.
A passage in the 193-page 302 transcript from Chamberlain Harris (focusing on how she scanned documents including sensitive White House schedules) describes that the door to the storage closet had only the kind of lock you’d find in a residential bathroom — a pinhole they’d open with a tiny flat screwdriver.
Person 10 [Harris]: They used to unlock it for me, because you could lock it from the inside.
Mr. Thakur: Okay. This is obviously after a lock was placed there, they would unlock it for you?
Person 10: No, this was before.
Mr. Thakur: Okay. So are you talking about a lock to another door, or?
Person 10: It’s a door with a pinhole in it.
Mr. Thakur: A door with a pinhole?
Person 10: Like, I don’t know, a circle doorknob?
SA 41: Kind of like what you would find on residential door inside of a home? So it might have a lock like that one on one side of it then other side, rather than an actual place for a key, it’s sort of like a —
Person 10: Yeah.
SA 41: — very tiny screwdriver?
Person 10: Um-hmm.
SA 51: I see. But that was only on the inside of the door. So you — reasonably couldn’t lock it from the outside unless they used that little pin to reengage the lock from the outside?
Person 10: You would just lock it when you left.
Finally, also in April, we got both the interview transcript and grand jury transcript from Walt Nauta.
In other words, there’s far, far more that got released as part of litigation in the documents case than the January 6 case.
And Dan Goldman, whose job it is to oversee such investigations, seemingly knows about none of that: Not the description of how the aspiring FBI Director stalled the investigation. Not the document claiming that the “declassify everything” claim Kash first made was a lie. And not the description of the back-and-forth with NARA that Goldman says he wants.
It’s all there in the docket. And has been (for the most part) since April.
If you want to know how Democrats failed to make more of a political case against Trump during the election, you can start with the fact that Dan Goldman — one of the Democrats’ most forceful voices on rule of law, a former TV personality, and a member of the House Judiciary Committee — knows almost nothing about what was made public in either of the federal cases against Donald Trump and as a result did little to make a big deal of that before the election.
One would hope that sooner rather than later, MOC would realize that it would behoove them to follow Emptywheel.
Or at least Kyle Cheney, who had a key role in surfacing two of these things.
Thank you for connecting the dots. Sherlock Holmes might say that Representative Dan Goldman was the dog that didn’t bark.
Not just Goldman, but we also have the earlier post about Raskin giving a non-standard off-ramp to Garland. As a result, Bondi can now bury things from Volume 1.
OT until it’s posted again: there is a lot of discussion here in the SF Bay Area about the threat to eliminate birthright citizenship expressly guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to prevent the South from denying citizenship to their former slaves. This was confirmed in the US v. Wong Kim Ark which is directly relevant to the situation under discussion. 6-2 favored Wong and broadly interpreted birthright citizenship. Keep in mind this was also the SCOTUS that approved Plessy v. Ferguson and Lochner so it wasn’t a place run by DFHs by any stretch.
So, if Convict-1’s minions challenge this with the executive order process we will be starting down the path laid out in Orwell’s Animal Farm for the commandments posted on the barn, where each unequivocal statement was modified untill all that was left was the first: ‘All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.’
Tail wagging the dog, more like it. Time he spent as a flashy celebrity distracted attention from his true duty?
One more time. Under Fed. R. Crim. Proc. 48, dismissing a criminal case at this juncture requires leave of court. Cannon won’t give it until after Trump’s in office and she knows what Pam Bondi will do with v. 2.
As EW has pointed out, there’s a bigger problem: finding a court that has jurisdiction over the case and the power to consent to the dismissal. The 11th Cir. has jurisdiction to hear appeals, but I think it would have to remand to Cannon, returning jurisdiction to her and the power to consent to dismissal. It could have acted weeks ago, but chose not to. Obviously, none of that will now take place before Trump and is acting AG are in office.
IANAL, so what is the effect of leaving the appeal at the 11CA? It would seem to me that the current situation leaves the case outside of any squelching effort by Bondi, since it would require return to Cannon for Bondi to get permission to dismiss.
Consent of a court is undoubtedly required, but isn’t there an open question about Cannon’s jurisdiction?
The applicable rules to the Nauta case in its current posture, ie on appeal by the Government against dismissal of the prosecution at DC level are surely Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure and 11 Cir Local Rules?
In the Trump portion of the appeal of the case SC motion
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25402464/govt-mtd-mal.pdf
(Citing the reasons set forth in the Government motion to dismiss in the DC case and temporary immunity )
“the UnitedStates of America moves, pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 42 and Eleventh Circuit Rule 42-1, to dismiss the appeal in this case as to defendant Trump.
Dismissing the appeal as to defendant Trump will leave in place the district court’s order dismissing the indictment without prejudice as to him.
The appeal concerning the other two defendants will continue because,
unlike defendant Trump, no principle of temporary immunity applies to them.”
And the 11 Cir allowed the dismissal of the appeal against Trump.
See order https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25418362/mtd-appeal-granted.pdf
FRAP 42 https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frap/rule_42
11 Circ Rules (Dec24 Rev)
https://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/courtdocs/clk/Rules%20Bookmark.DEC24.pdf
Rule 42-1 p165
Rule 27-1(8) p100
So
FRAP 42 provides
a) Dismissal in the District Court. Before an appeal has been docketed by the circuit clerk, the district court may dismiss the appeal on the filing of a stipulation signed by all parties or on the appellant’s motion with notice to all parties.
b) Dismissal in the Court of Appeals.
(1) Stipulated Dismissal. The circuit clerk must dismiss a docketed appeal if the parties file a signed dismissal agreement specifying how costs are to be paid and pay any court fees that are due.
(2) Appellant’s Motion to Dismiss. An appeal may be dismissed on the appellant’s motion on terms agreed to by the parties or fixed by the court.
(3) Other Relief. A court order is required for any relief under Rule 42(b)(1) or (2) beyond the dismissal of an appeal—including approving a settlement, vacating an action of the district court or an administrative agency, or remanding the case to either of them.
(c) Court Approval. This Rule 42 does not alter the legal requirements governing court approval of a settlement, payment, or other consideration.
(d) Criminal Cases. A court may, by local rule, impose requirements to confirm that a defendant has consented to the dismissal of an appeal in a criminal case.
11th Cir. R. 42-1 Dismissal of Appeals.
(a) Stipulated Dismissal Agreements and Motions to Dismiss by Appellants or Petitioners.
If an appeal has been assigned to a panel on the merits, any stipulated dismissal agreement or motion to dismiss the appeal will be submitted to that panel.
….
If an appeal has not been assigned to a panel on the merits and an appellant’s or petitioner’s motion to dismiss is opposed, it will be submitted to the court. All motions to dismiss and stipulated dismissal agreements must contain a Certificate of Interested Persons and Corporate Disclosure Statement in compliance with FRAP 26.1 and the accompanying circuit rules. For motions to dismiss criminal appeals, see also 11th Cir. R. 27-1(a)(7) and 27-1(8)
11CirR 27-1(8)
Both retained and appointed counsel who seek leave to withdraw from •or to dismiss a criminal appeal must recite in the motion that the party they represent has been informed of the motion and either approves or disapproves of the relief sought and show service of the motion on the party they represent.•
So dismissal is IMHO firmly in the hands of the panel and the parties in 11 Cir.
Whatever jurisdiction Cannon has conjured for herself regarding release of SC reports, she cannot supersede the Appellate Court’s jurisdiction over the case before it, including the question of dismissal and the requirement of their consent. Should they dismiss the appeal, the posture of the case is that it is dismissed in total.
I think your concerns about Dan Goldman are valid to a point but his lack of knowledge reveals the problem with our whole system. There are only 24 hours in a day and even if you’re only sleeping six of those hours, if you’re spending any time on television or podcasts, that’s time that can’t be spent reading reports and listening to your fellow legislators. There’s just too much information and only so much of it can be seen by any one person and so much of it is irrelevant and irritating and reveals the state of political and legal sclerosis we’re living in. And the typical source of information for most Americans is FoxNews, CNN and MSNBC, only the latter (barely) attempting to provide us with actual information and history. FoxNews just gives viewers more targets to hate. CNN (& MSNBC) is rhetoric and opinion that does not inform. It’s hard for the average person to be presented with so much information and begin to read through it and realize just how useless some of the information is. There’s just so much to read (and I’m a slow reader, as I was an engineering major, not a liberal arts major in college) and so many hearings to watch on C-Span and so much stuff being said by our legislative leaders. I don’t know how you do it. I don’t know how the hosts on MSNBC were able to read books and reports and then comment on them within minutes or hours when it takes me days to get through all the legal mumbo jumbo and weeks to read a book. Where to start? It’s just all very overwhelming. And we wonder why 90+ million Americans don’t vote at all and never have.
Goldman has access to resources to aid him. He’s also an attorney who should be quite adept at this point in his career with reading volumes of material and gleaning what’s important. He doesn’t have to read harder, just smarter.
For starters he or a staffer could have read Marcy’s work.
Wasn’t Goldman also one of the J6 Committee counsels? IIRC he made his jump into stardom with his examinations of witnesses, especially the not-very-cooperative ones. What that means if I am correct is that he had access to more information than us mere commoners and therefore EW’s criticism is more justified.
A-yup. Not to mention his committee assignments which must also bring a few more resources:
I’m not sure that “the typical source of information for most Americans is FoxNews, CNN and MSNBC, ”
Many podcasts have way larger watchers and listeners than them.
The typical source of infromation is . . . BLANK.
As I can aver from bitter experience as a newspaperman, most people have no information about most subjects.
The total direct penetration of CNN, MSNBC and Fox is no more than 1 in 50, and that would assume that each of those took in all the information on those channels.
Such fine work laying things out.
And the final paragraph begs for wide circulation as a simple stand-alone post by those who care toward those who should.
It is astounding that Donald Trump mishandled that much classified information and that many government documents and managed to get away with it. The career plaintiff/defendantswindler managed to outrun the law.
Our country is about to be taken over by a hostile administration.
We need multiples of Dan Goldmans and Jamie Raskins to counter this corrupt and irresponsible administration.
We can count on them being arrogant and sloppy so they should be easy to catch.
Reality Winner spent five years in prison for far, far less than Trump. It is an abomination of justice that Trump misappropriated classified reports and may have used them in nefarious ways and he doesn’t even get a slap on the wrist.
He got a slap in the back, you’re immune.
Go ahead and have your opponents killed by SEALS, go ahead and shoot someone on 5th Ave., go ahead and stay out of jail and collect billions,…
This post is Marcy calling Goldman sloppy, at best.
There is a difference between being sloppy and being negligent. Goldman had a responsibility to learn the facts about these (independent counsel) investigations and then use those facts to push back against Trump’s attempt to rewrite history.
Depends on your thesaurus, apparently.
My comment at the top of this thread was meant for FL Resister, a thread above, btw.
If he was working for DOJ, then he was negligent.
Congress doesn’t have to meet the same standards – though I suspect a lot of the members with JDs never practiced, or haven’t practiced, in many many years.
According to Wikipedia, Goldman does not belong to this category. He has more than a decade of experience after graduating from law school. He should know the importance of reading the original court documents and not rely on media reporting about the proceedings. And, as Rayne has already observed (above, January 19, 2025 at 10:59 pm), as a member of Congress, he has resources to aid him in doing the more in-depth work.
As @kenwhite.bsky.social put it, “Seriously though the Stupid Evil Party vs. the Stupid Useless Party is really getting on my fucking nerves.”
https://bsky.app/profile/kenwhite.bsky.social/post/3lg4jrb4c622m
I just feel nauseous when I read these posts. I pass EW’s work to my most gifted brilliant brother and every smart person I know.
My mom’s dementia prevents her from consuming these words as she used to. I share with my kids. I just fear that people no longer read at this level. Or something. I just keep passing the info to anyone who will consume it. But I fear there are not enough people who “get it”.
At least we have each other. And of course not all of us “get it” all of the time.
I ache for more illuminated discussions with friends and relatives who all agree but do not consume information like what is found here.
Marcy, the classifications contain interesting information. You may already know this but a redacted label probably denotes a SAP, possibly hiding a human source. SI is signals intelligence (likely NSA), TK is “talent keyhole” or spy satellite, IMCON is likely associated imagery, and ORCON is originator controlled. FRD would not contain overt weapons design data but might contain information beyond simple storage locations that should not be released. I was physically ill when I first saw these labels.
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