Filling the Surveillance Footage Gaps: Place and Payments
The government has asked for — and Trump and Walt Nauta’s lawyers have not objected — to a protective order in the stolen documents case. That’s utterly routine — though sometimes there is a stink about the terms of a protective order, which didn’t happen here.
The actual protective order itself does not include extra restrictions to prevent Trump from tweeting shit out — as his Alvin Bragg protective order did — but it does require the defense to make everyone who reviews discovery to sign a protective order as well (sometimes defendants unsuccessfully object to this on Sixth Amendment grounds because it provides a way to track a defendant’s own investigation).
The motion itself has attracted a good deal of attention because of this language, describing why they need to keep the discovery confidential: There’s an ongoing investigation.
The materials also include information pertaining to ongoing investigations, the disclosure of which could compromise those investigations and identify uncharged individuals
This makes more explicit what a description of needing to send this indictment back to a grand jury in DC, in the motion to seal the indictment, already implied. DOJ needed to tell grand jurors in DC a story about how much work Donald Trump and Walt Nauta did to withhold documents from the FBI and the Archives, in part so they could load them on a plane to Bedminster.
Which is why I want to look more closely at what else — besides information on an ongoing investigation — DOJ is trying to protect.
- personal identifiable information covered by Rule 49.1 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure
- information that reveals sensitive but unclassified investigative techniques
- non-public information relating to potential witnesses and other third parties (including grand jury transcripts and exhibits and recordings of witness interviews)
- financial information of third parties
- third-party location information
- personal information contained on electronic devices and accounts
The first and second are routine — things like social security numbers and FBI techniques. The last, personal information on devices and accounts, is a nod to a great deal of content obtained in this investigation (including the pictures of stolen documents that appear in the indictment). Maggie Haberman reported that Trump hated those pictures in the indictment. A review of the pictures yet to come may prove sobering to Trump.
DOJ is, from the start, providing grand jury transcripts, but that’s likely a testament to the number of people who testified under a subpoena (normally, there would be more interview reports and DOJ might provide grand jury transcripts closer to trial).
It’s the remaining two I find interesting: financial information, and location data, particularly given the documents that went to Bedminster, never to be heard from again, and the gaps in surveillance footage.
Location data showing that someone was standing in front of a known surveillance camera at a particular time might help to fill the gaps that currently exist in the footage. Their bank account might provide more context.
These details may give Trump’s attorneys — and perhaps more importantly, Nauta’s — a sense of where DOJ thinks this investigation might head. In other circumstances, DOJ might try to obscure that an Espionage Act indictment charging 31 different highly sensitive documents is just the appetizer in a larger investigation. But in this case, they want Trump — and perhaps more importantly, Nauta — to know that from the start.
A tactical indictment indeed.
Thank you.
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Wouldn’t the airport that trump uses to fly back to Bedminster have surveillance cameras that would capture the beautiful mind boxes being unloaded?
Yes, this is possible, even likely. The question may be how long the recordings are retained. However, line service personnel at the fixed-base operator that serviced the flight(s) would almost certainly recall unloading bankers boxes if that happened. I would think DOJ would track those folks down and talk to them.
This phrase is really something:
The woman can write!
If the appetizer is giving the nation heartburn, the main course in DC may prove to be indigestible for the nation. Perhaps, the DC action is more of a smorgasbord of small fry rather than a prime roast.
I was feeling a little sorry for the DC Grand Jurors. They have done a lot of work but the Miami GJ gets the action.
Grand jurors don’t get action.
I’ve never been on a GJ, but I’m guessing that a handing-down feels an awful lot like doing something.
The GJ is only for investigation and indictments stage, then a new jury is selected for the trial.
Nobody would really want to be on a jury in a Trump case, for fear of getting doxed, intimidated, nobbled etc.
Boy, this provides a buffet for speculation,
If the video tapes have been tampered with the Calamaris and maybe others will be facing cooperating witness vs co-defendant type charges. Do they want to be trudging behind Walt Nauta for the next 2 years relying on trump to pay for their expensive crim defense? He may cut a deal for hisself and leave them under the bus.
Follow the money…If trump has monetized his docs trove money has been moving (setting aside $2B Saudi tip to Jared…maybe)
If family and friends have been getting tours of the docs vault and these views were edited out of security tapes squeezing Calamaris and others to cooperate with add’l evidence will stregthen the case against others. I think for political reasons the investigation didn’t want to drop bombs on other trump family members (text msg btwn female trump to Walt showing knowledge of boxes in transit to Badminster) to delay Lindsay G sobbing on nat’l TV that Americas favorite first lady/centerfold is being persecuted. But Smith’s following the law and evidence and not handing out hall passes.
If trump moved large vols of docs to Badminster it’s unimaginable that he wouldn’t have the chutpah to move them to British isles golf courses if he thought he could get away with it. His fast break there in May seemed so odd with everything else happening to him in US and he personally shepherded the boxes to NJ so it’s not something he would delegate (and nobody except maybe Nauta is dumb enough to do it – and they wouldn’t get courtesy customs pass thru accorded an ex US prez. “Personal papers with $0 value” wouldn’t get looked at)
There’s no ‘a’ in ‘Bedminster’
Let it go. With the number of errors in the previous comment, it’s possible they don’t have spell check.
Intentional, dooh, and Bedminster is a proper name, so spellcheck wouldn’t work. I’ll be sure to throw in smore spelling and grammar mistakes to keep you self busy.
[FYI – There’s a limit to the amount of intentional disregard for grammar and spelling conventions here. Consider yourself warned. /~Rayne]
“Boy, this provides a buffet for speculation”
Can’t we do something with Calamaris? Such tasty finger food —
definitely part of a squid pro quo.
Bwahahaha. Excuse me, I’ll see myself out.
earthworm serves up a softball and punaise smashes it into the cheap seats … I think a bat flip before circling the bases is entirely appropriate for that one
That is what Punaise does.
Thanks, but here’s where I have to cop to recycling some of my old “material”..
I’ve made stuffed calamari. Tentacles go into the stuffing. Mantle gets stuffed.
Suction ate, affordable.
God, I hope I used my old name in this comment. If not, I’m sorry.
Anyway, the question for me is not just “Will Nauta flip” but also “Will Trump fall on his sword for Ivanka?”
Careful with the imagery there..
In any case, if Ivanka’s culpability is seriously at question (which 2 billion dollars & her concurrent distancing act may suggest), then the question of ‘will Donnie DARVO act to protect his daughter’ I suspect is built into the unfolding of a speedy trial
— *not a ‘just asking questions’/ speculative comment. – How does the DARVOnator and his daughter separate themselves from each to CTA’s? Where is Ivanka in Jack Smith’s hand?
each*other*
I suspect if Donnie DARVO shepherded boxes to the British Isles that would open him up to even greater exposure that Jack Smith & Co. can handle..
Since not recusing herself at selection, Aileen Cannon’s ostensibly normal actions in this case seem increasingly suspicious.
Waiting for the other shoe–or, rather, the jackboot–to drop.
There is nothing that warranted Cannon recusing herself “at selection” and nothing to date “suspicious”. That is just complete bullshit. It is early, so it may yet occur, but hyperbole like that, to date, is bogus.
Cannon was bench-slapped twice already in this case for rulings that were demonstrably stupid or incompetent.
The fact that she now presides over the case of the person who appointed her, and has been acting normally, should give everyone pause.
Lol, let me know the next time “you” have been bench-slapped, “Baseless”.
bench-slapped
wow.
Lol, trust me it is a real thing. It happens from the actual bench above you in court. Baseless was hyperventilating.
28 U.S. Code section 455 (a)
Oh Jesus, thank you for that idiotic cite. You think I have not seen that garbage from Norm Eisen for days? It is, to date, a load of shit.
Thanks for your cite as well. Here’s the URL for it:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/06/trump-indictment-remove-judge-aileen-cannon.html
I find his argument compelling, especially with regard to his conservative approach to the application of only that subsection, to wit: his description of her persistence in her “league of his own” prejudice in Trump’s favor, even after the Circuit issued a temporary stay, is pretty convincing evidence that she has a strong, legally incoherent bias in favor of the defendant which puts her recusal directly in the crosshairs of subsection (b), for which no waiver is permitted.
The paragraph where he lays that down is about halfway down the piece, beginning with “Second, Judge Cannon’s other statements…”
What a load of shit. Eisen and Painter are two of the biggest TV lawyer idiots in history. And I have said that for a very long time before you signed in to grace us with your presence here. Probably over a decade ago, or more. But, please papa, preach.
Thanks so much for the cheerful encouragement! And for the sly Father’s Day nod!
I’ll pass on the preaching invite though. I’m preoccupied writing a Complaint to submit to the JCDC. Polyannaish, no doubt, but I don’t think I’m the only one doing it.
Would the location data come from the GPS of a cellphone? Team Trump really needs to improve the op sec of its criming.
Even with my limited knowledge of how DOJ works, all of which I learned here at EW (thanks!), I see a contrast between the secrecy maintained prior to the (first) indictments and the matter of fact, almost bland acknowledgement of ongoing investigations that presumably will lead to further charges. I don’t know how possible it would have been to revert to their prior level of secrecy or whether there’s only so much they could do once the cat is out of the bag, but it does seem quite intentional.
The location data is more than GPS. It could also be WiFi beacons and Bluetooth. For example, Cisco has their Spaces product that is used for asset tracking, think where in the building is a laptop. Meraki also has a product that it uses to track shopping habits in stores based on unique wifi and Bluetooth IDs. What aisle did customer with device X visit, how long were they in front of Frosted Flakes vs Cheerios. Did they stop at pregnancy tests, etc. That is cloud data. iOS recently deployed their “Private WiFi Address” feature to try and anonymize some of the collection of this data, but it’s been around for a bit now.
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The only time I take my phone with me is when it needs to update.
In one of the photos used in the indictment there appears to be a copying machine(!) tucked in behind one of the stacks of boxes in the store room. Wouldn’t the machine include software tracking date and time of use, number of copies made, any Bluetooth linkages, or networked uploads, etc? Wouldn’t it be Fingerprintable? Was it taken during the search of MAL? Why is no one talking about this?
Might be a non-working machine, might not be a power plug within reach, might, might might.
Upon closer examination, it appears to be two different objects – the ‘paper tray’ belongs to something beyond whatever the large rectangular mass is. But of course, there are copiers all over MAL. And scanners. And (one assumes) satellite uplinks.
As noted previously by many, we have no idea how much the DOJ has on Trump and his allies. However, with Meadows having cooperated to save his behind, he was there for most of the activities related to the documents and Jan 6th and most likely could provide detailed maps on what happened, when they happened, and who was involved. Add in all the others who have cooperated to some extent or another and all the cell phone text information, etc. and the probability of Smith having a very detailed story with testimonies under oath is high in my opinion. The pressure for a relatively young Walter to flip will be enormous.
I don’t think we know if Meadows cooperated or if he just offered basic compliance.
Might there be similar efforts to fill the gaps in Secret Service J6 text? That gap is sooo suspicious. Thinking i should avoid rebuke here and go ahead and research what has already been revealed/ written.
If trump had been shot in the head and six hours of text were in the poof file, there would be no end to the cries .
The J6 SS gaps makes the entire SS look complicit.
Who knows, as the insurection was happening in the back of some agent’s mind he is thinking, oh goodie, I’m getting four more years guarding the wig.
[Moderator’s note: Let’s avoid graphic references to violence against this particular individual even if a hypothetical. /~Rayne]
Secret Service messages along with no WH phone logs for Jan6 (Secretary took day off). Now, incomplete video record due to pool draining into servers! Just coincidence X 3!
I’m not buying it!
Rayne and community, Mea Culpa. . Violent suggestions are not necessary to make one’s point. .
make one’s point. Thank you.
Relatedly, however, I know the father of an SS agent on Trump’s detail. The Dad is an ardent Trump supporter.
Covering one’s tracks in Law enforcement has been known to happen from time to time. The texts gaps warrant examination
Smith hopefully has questioned all of Trump’s SS detail and supervisors up the line about Trump and others action s onJan 6.
Are we ever going to get any where near the rat- fucker (s) in the Willard hotel ?
Hope so.
Mr Nauta’s first name is Waltine.
like Saltine, the cracker…
… and we hope like the dolphin, Flipper.
Indeed! But to what porpoise?
Faster than lightning.
…but, like, haste makes waste:
No-one you see, moves boxes like he
Fa go now.
I am not a lawyer or legal scholar, but it seems this might be a really good time for Walt Nauta to consider the direction his life is going at this particular fork in the road. Nobody knows where the goods are in Jersey? Walt knows. Having the same defense attorney as his boss isn’t the best scenario for him right now either…. fall guy doesn’t look good on a resume unless you’re heading to the slammer.
It will never be the same atty. The better question is whether Trump is paying for them, and is that appropriate given the circumstances.
Maybe dumb question: Do we know if ALL of the boxes that were on the plane to Bedminster got taken off the plane there?
Interesting you asked that. I was wondering if there were records of other planes of interest that landed within a time window that would have allowed the transfer of boxes at the airport, plane to plane.
Or 1 or more documents could have been stashed somewhere on the plane during the trip for the cleaners to “find”.
If you line a baseball hat with tin foil, no one will ever know.
Or what about UFOs!
Yeah…I know it sounds like that…I’m sorry I asked and will stop commenting about it now.
Lol, NEVER stop asking or commenting Harpie.
~eye roll~
Ha ha
I was side-eyeing, too, hope you felt that.
Lol.
‘Little Green Men from Outer Space’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWR87zSI3F0
They aren’t “Little Green Men…”. Savage, they’re Little Grey Doctors. Everyone knows that. Sheesh! (Tip o’the tinfoil hat).
what kind of probe he talking about?
Ugh. Bedminster is a PITA to research that line of inquiry, must say.
Closest domestic airports:
20 miles to Morristown Municipal Airport (MMU / KMMU)
32 miles to Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR / KEWR)
41 miles to Trenton-Mercer Airport (TTN / KTTN)
45 miles to Teterboro Airport (TEB / KTEB)
Closest international airports:
32 miles: Newark, NJ (EWR / KEWR) Newark Liberty International Airport
58 miles: New York, NY (JFK / KJFK) John F. Kennedy International Airport
59 miles: New York, NY (LGA / KLGA) LaGuardia Airport
80 miles: Philadelphia, PA (PHL / KPHL) Philadelphia International Airport
110 miles: Atlantic City, NJ (ACY / KACY) Atlantic City International Airport
Wasn’t he using a private jet through Teterboro?
But flights to Bedminster are just as much of a PITA from departure POV. The other problem (which I’ll bet Special Counsel’s office has already looked into) is that the video taken May 8, 2021 of (9) boxes being moved onto a private plane was taken in Florida — but DailyMail’s reporting doesn’t specify which airport. I assume West Palm Beach but who knows? And was DailyMail tipped off by someone inside Mar-a-Lago about this trip so that they don’t want to share much publicly about the airport and videographer?
Closest domestic airports which also happen to be closest international airports:
5 miles: West Palm Beach, FL (PBI / KPBI) Palm Beach International Airport
51 miles: Fort Lauderdale, FL (FLL / KFLL) Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport
76 miles: Miami, FL (MIA / KMIA) Miami International Airport
Closest local airports:
12 miles: West Palm Beach, FL (LNA / KLNA) Palm Beach County Park Airport
26 miles: Jupiter, FL (XWN) William P Gwinn
28 miles: Boca Raton, FL (BCT / KBCT) Boca Raton Airport
40 miles: Pompano Beach, FL (PPM) Pompano Beach Airpark
41 miles: Stuart, FL (SUA / KSUA) Witham Field
42 miles: Fort Lauderdale, FL (FXE / KFXE) Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport
47 miles: Pahokee, FL (PHK / KPHK) Palm Beach County Glades Airport
Maybe somebody else has a bead on this already. I’ve got laundry to do, can’t dig any further now.
Trump uses MMU (Morristown) when visiting Bedminster. Have to do some looking to see which airport in Florida, but I would guess PBI.
Closest jet-capable airport is always your best bet. Travel time and convenience is paramount.
Hello first comment here and unfortunately only with limited English.
The original pictures can be found on the Dailymail UK page “Melania-Trump-wears-polka-dots-celebrate-Mothers-Day-Mar-Lago-Barron-Donald” .
You can search with the picture. I found: 3800 Southern Blvd, West Palm Beach plausible,
Company : Atlantic Aviation PBI…
The video is here https://www.dailymail.co.uk/embed/video/2415696.html
Carrying these boxes, there is a tall dude, a smaller guy (possibly Waltine Nauta), and a woman. All three tell the flight attendant/ pilot something along the lines of mitts off when they offer a hand.
Is it known who the tall guy and the woman are? It looks like they were told this was sensitive stuff, or beautiful mind boxes indeed.
I don’t think the beautiful mind analogy makes justice to these boxes. Together with news clippings, there was really sensitive things it seems.
This is not the video taken in June 2022 right after the DOJ and the FBI came to Mar-a-Lago to retrieve the docs and were told there was a thorough search and that’s all there were. That afternoon, Trump left for Bedminster and there is a video with at least 13 boxes being carried to the plane. The video you posted was taken in 2021. So he took boxes of docs to Bedminster at least twice!
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Thank you for that bit of research.
Atlantic Aviation through airport PBI makes sense because it has a connection at Morristown, New Jersey which is the closest to Bedminster.
See: https://www.flightbridge.com/Directory/Airport/PBI-KPBI/Services/FBO-Handler/AtlanticAviation/90/3560
Welcome to emptywheel.
It’s definitely Atlantic Aviation because you can see their logo on a fuel truck in the video. If he uses Atlantic at PBI, it’s a near certainty he uses Atlantic at MMU.
The aircraft is a Cessna C750 (Citation X) which has a maximum take-off weight of 36,100 lbs (about a third of which will be fuel) and a maximum payload — people plus baggage — of just under 2,400 pounds. I guess the point is that you can’t just stuff the airplane full and expect it still to be able to take off; weight and balance are very important and I saw an awful lot of luggage (and boxes) being carried to that airplane. The pilots have to know the weight of luggage, people, and fuel loaded on the aircraft and there should be records of those things.
Interestingly, this is not “Trump Force One”. What would be the level of familiarity with the plane, and its storage capacity/areas? Would the boxes have been within reach during the trip, and would the cell phones still be active while airborne?
The May 2021 flight a special smaller box and one white box are carried into the passenger compartment. The other white boxes are on the tarmac behind the wing looking like they are going into cargo.
Yes. PBI in Florida. The same one he sues a lot.
Does the government have a handle on how many boxes were loaded on the plane to Bedminster? Or their contents?
Female 1 sent a text message conscious of the weight of such cargo and the limitations of the plane. Funny they didn’t put Walt on a northbound bus to cover the difference.
Who is “Female 1”?
Melania (and her luggage)?
I assume it is the Trump family member who texted Nauta, telling him that Trump could not bring boxes on the plane because it would be full with luggage.
My point is these stupid nomenclatures are stupid. Use the damn name. This really gets tiring. If people want to talk about real things, in real time, have the balls, and common sense, to use the name of who you are talking about. Cutesy pie internet bullshit does not cut it.
Bmaz, the indictment uses “a Trump family member” and later quotes Nauta referring to this person as “Ma’am”. If you want to whinge about the absence of names in this instance, take it up with Jack Smith and the DOJ.
No, when it comes to this site I will maintain exactly what I said. Cutesy pie shit is simply stupid. Did Jack Smith ever write anything here? No, so I do not need to take anything up with him.
bmaz, you are assuming the original commenter, Patrick Carty, was trying to be cutesy or was using it as a smart-ass nickname. Your attitude is not justified here. Based on the info available to most of us (on the indictment and the public coverage), we cannot be sure who “Female 1” is…maybe Melania, maybe an assistant or other staffer. Is “Female 1” too short for you? Would you prefer “Unidentified Female” or “Unknown Female” – because it is unknown to us.
BMazz, in no way was I trying to be “cutesy” whatever that means. I was paraphrasing the indictment mentioning a text sent by an unnamed female to Walt Nauta regarding the weight of luggage on an airplane. You know this. Can we stop with the constant besmirch already? I’m not a lawyer or versed in legalize, but just an observer with an
observation. Or let me know if I need to go elsewhere.
Please use the phrase used in the indictment, then. “Female 1” can suggest a subject who is not yet a target, while “‘Trump family member’ addressed by Nauta as ‘Ma’am’” suggests the Special Counsel does not currently see this person as a subject.
And here I thought “Female 1” was legalese for “First Lady.”
The indictment doesn’t use that term. We only know the family member was female because Nauta’s reply is included:
“Good afternoon Walt, Happy Memorial Day!
I saw you put boxes to Potus room. Just FYI and I will tell him as well: Not sure how many he wants to take on Friday on the plane. We will NOT have a room for them. Plane will be full with luggage. Thank you!”
NAUTA replied:
“Good Afternoon Ma’am [Smiley Face Emoji] Thank you so much.
I think he wanted to pick from them. I don’t imagine him wanting to take the boxes.
He told me to put them in the room and that he was going to talk to you about them.”
As a sometime writing teacher, it’s really hard to tell in any given case whether errors are: (1) fossilized ESL markers; (2) native speaker whose grammar is poor; or (3) texter who is all thumbs. But the preposition usage (I saw you put boxes to Potus room), and the misuse of the article in sentence four (we will not have a room for them) looks as if it were typed by a non-native speaker of English.
But as I say, while errors are easy to spot, it’s harder to assign a cause for them.
I concur – thanks for stating it so clearly. I’m a former professor who read all of my students’ work (no TAs), and agree errors are easy to see, intent is harder to detect. Also, within a learning environment there is a expectation for serious writing — and continuity w/ same individuals over the course of a semester or quarter allows you to spot deviations more quickly.
I’m sure the moderators have a different kind of issue with so many different styles and ‘voices’ to read and perceive intent or tone. I marvel at the intense and intentional guidance by the moderators, the core team and many long-timers.
It is an excellent place to learn. Kudos to all dedicated writers and readers.
Also “how many he wants to take on Friday on the plane.” could be a native speaker who got lost in what she was saying, but the order of the two phrases at the end also could be because it was typed by a non-native speaker of English.
If we is everyone outside of DOJ, answer is no. If DOJ knows, they haven’t taken full page ads informing the other everyone(s). There could have been other flight(s) from MAL transporting ’em who knows where. If Trump is good at one thing, its hiding stuff.
DOJ has its work cut out for them on this one, especially with all the toxic political push back, upcoming primary season etc. etc., all very real time constraints.
I asked here a couple days ago here, why we don’t hear more clamor from intelligence services or (???) about possible dangers to national security if any of the classified docs that seem to have disappeared. There wasn’t a good answer (IMO).
I found myself wondering this morning if some of more sensitive docs are chipped. With all we’ve seen about Trump’s seemingly disregard for intel briefings/docs, if I was in a position having to track sensitive stuff that went to his office, after a while of hearing all this (disregard) chipping those things would have come to mind. They have chips that can do this now that can barely be seen by a microscope.
When I heard recording of Trump telling his lawyer he (Trump) didn’t want him (lawyer) looking at his “stuff”, I took that as implicit that he knows exactly what is/was in those boxes. As loose lipped as Trump is, I would think he has enough restraint to not tell Nauta in one of their bookkeeping sessions: “This pile is stuff for Vlad.”
“I asked here a couple days ago here, why we don’t hear more clamor from intelligence services”
Why would IC point out their exposures so that they could be used as points of attack? Just, no. They were classified for a reason and are being treated as classified. Instead, watch for proxies who have already expressed ample concern.
As for “This pile is stuff for Vlad” — Vlad was not Trump’s only sponsor, not the only entity with whom Trump conducted a transactional relationship.
I was thinking more along the lines of well sourced IC official mentioning to a trusted journalist there was concern about those missing docs. Absence of anything like this seems odd to me.
My bad for not including TFG’s LIV biz partners in my list of 1 (slaps forehead), and larger universe of possible clients in TFG’s $$$ for documents hustle.
You would already have seen them as “sources familiar” in stories already published, but I think this is ugly enough IC feedback to media will be carefully managed. And by ugly I mean *nobody* is mentioning anything about the materials Teri Kanefield saw online this week. Whatever happened was soooo toxic it repels observation in print.*
Proxies like John Sipher who others are mentioning here have already said quite a bit since the warrant was executed last August.
* EDIT: See https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4054194-justice-files-for-protective-order-to-prevent-trump-from-releasing-classified-materials/ — notice how little is said in this piece about the drivers behind the protective order, requested 3 days after Trump’s arraignment. They’re not even going to touch it.
I have not heard from the IC! Lol. The problems are when you do.
This is from JustSecurity a few days back, former IC officials commenting on Trump’s behaviour and possible risks arising therefrom.
https://www.justsecurity.org/86935/the-trump-indictment-what-top-intelligence-experts-are-saying/
I was particularly interested in a comment from one John Sipher (what a name for an ex-CIA guy! Is it for real?), who says:
“Why would the Chinese, Russians or anyone else risk a break-in to Mar-a-Lago when they know that Trump is likely to brag to friends and others over the phone? Intercepting phone calls is child’s play. I suspect that foreign intelligence agencies determined as early as 2016 that the way to pick up secrets from the White House was to tap his phones, and the phones of his personal friends like Rudy Giuliani and others.”
Thanks for the link. Sipher downplays likelihood an unfriendly spook would risk getting caught at MAL. The other 2 just the opposite.
Worth reading, although I didn’t see anything that hasn’t been discussed here in last few weeks. All 3 contributors express, forcefully, concerns about damage to US security.
Sipher summarized with this:
Anyway, thx again for link.
Another ex-CIA guy here. Sipher is correct about the horror Trump represents to national security. Apart from the documents themselves, if the IC had a relationship with a foreign individual senior enough to meet in person on occasion with Trump, then Trump would likely have been told of that fact.
Hypothetical: if any of the documents were out of country,
would the U.S. have the right to seize them?
The US would not have the right to seize the documents. It could ask the foreign government for them, under a mutual legal assistance treaty. They often work.
When Marc Rich skipped the country with documents he was fined $50,000 a day until they were returned. His lawyers went to court to pay twice a week for six months.
When seeking, and receiving, a pardon from Bill Clinton Rich’s lawyer was Scooter Libby.
Not so good as everyone else here keeping track of who where what when (do you have walls of notes and strings or just giant excel sheets?)
But is it known if Saudis, like Saudis linked to LIV, visited Bedminster during the summer of 2021?
Did Jared do his dealings via travel to the Kingdom?
I’m eager for discussion of the LIV-PGA thing. I was only aware of LIV because of an Atlantic Monthly article some time ago.
Pinboards and crazed savants, that’s how we roll.
You can find our past LIV-PGA stuff under the tag for golf: https://www.emptywheel.net/tag/golf/
!L!O!L!
My name is one letter off the new standards, so I’ve been avoiding commenting because I’m lazy. I don’t have much to add to the conversation here, either, but great articles lately (I liked bmaz’s recent too) and man, this is getting interesting.
[Thanks for updating your username to meet the 8 letter minimum. I’m changing the username on this from “Formerly known as Artemis, now Artemis Prime” to “Artemis Prime.” Begin as you mean to go on, to borrow a phrase. /~Rayne]
The documents indictment in FL is tactical – so it every opening move in a game of chess. It was always ONLY the first move for Jack. So far, Trump’s fingered a few pieces (Comer/McCarthy/et al, MAGAts, TruthSocial posting insanity, complicit and compliant press) – he’s learning he has no move and this isn’t chess.
TFG was the king of fucking around. Jack is going to show him the finding out top prize. He has earned it!
“TFG was the king of fucking around…”
My quick little Photoshop contribution:
https://www.bgladd.com/TrumpFAAFO.jpg
Nice. Borrowing from Elvin Bishop:
Lol, I fooled around and actually saw Elvin Bishop back in the day.
I think he’s still around the Bay Area, although not sure he performs any longer. He suffered the horrible murder of his daughter back in 2000.
Been a long time, but recollection is he was really pretty good. Think was opening act for someone.
Yikes !! Elvin Bishop is 80 !!
Better put on your (time) traveling shoes.
Somebody fetch my coat and hat and hand me my walking cane
punaise, did you know Ron and Myra Brocchini ?
Eh, no. Do tell!
Berkeley architects
ah. Google says they both passed away in 2022.
Saw Elvin Bishop several times when I lived in the SF Bay Area, but the last show I remember was around 1983 in SF at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. Great show! Then I realize that was FORTY years ago. Ugh.
He lives in Southern California. Currently on tour at 80 years old.
Saw Elvin Bishop when he was the headliner for the Fountain Blues Festival in San Jose. This was pre-Covid, so probably 5 – 6 years ago.
I’d just like to point out that it is a pretty kick ass blog where a surveillance post can turn into an Elvin Bishop thing. We generally try to stay on topic, but it is a weekend, and the people here are fantastic. Thanks to one and all, the proprietors love you.
Exactly why I keep reading – astute political and legal analysis, cultural depth and range, music, puns, film and humor interspersed throughout. Great, great, great. And, real people whose lives are revealed in bits and pieces…like an ongoing multi-character novel.
Love it!
Saw him with Jeff Beck and Aerosmith. Ring any bells? 76-77???
Maybe! Actually sounds about right, not sure. Used to go to some of those all day multiple group concerts back then. Festivals! Cannot imagine doing that anymore.
He played the Shaboo in beautiful Willimantic, Connecticut in the ’70s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPJ4068C36k
Oh, that is very cool!
Here’s another good one, a half hour show from ’84…
https://youtu.be/5mvIOszhiHM
What a father’s day gift this morning’s read provided! The assistive devices around the house remained unused during my adventuresome stroll deep through memory lane. The Paul Butterfield Band, East West and Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw stand near the left edge of my original vinyl shelf.
I’d misremembered Elvin Bishop on stage with Mike Bloomfield and the Electric Flag when they opened for Big Brother and featured act Cream at U.C. Santa Barbara’s basketball gymnasium. Nick Gravenites from Chicago was lead singer, but Barry Goldberg on keyboards was the only one who’d played on Butterfield’s first album with Bishop and Bloomfield. That live music experience was overwhelming. I’d see Leon Russel the next year with Joe Cocker on the Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour at the Santa Barbara bowl.
This transient military aviation brat’s music evolution: Tennessee Ernie Ford, Marty Robbins, The Everley Brothers, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder live at the Cow Palace South San Francisco and Bob Dylan live at College of San Mateo’s gymnasium both in the fall ’63, Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, British Invasion, San Francisco.
Unlike the adults in this room, my solution to life’s problems from my late teens into my post sobriety 50’s was “What Would Peter Pan Do?”. He’d never grow up.
Thank you all for your contributions to my serenity these last six or seven years.
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Thank you for the reminder. Mea culpa. After sending this I remembered that the number 1 trailing “Orienteer” seemed presumptuous given my average at best performance in the sport. Oz was more in keeping with both my place of residence since summer of ’71 and gratitude for changes I’ve taken since ’98 to accept the truth of “There’s no place like home.”
Speaking of orienteering, “Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man, that he didn’t (didn’t) already have…”
“It felt good to be out of the rain”
Saw Elvin Bishop with Tommy Castro at the Crest Theater in Sacramento in 2016. Still rockin’ it.
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I saw him quite a few times. Seemed like almost every weekend he played one of the smaller clubs between Santa Cruz and the redwoods. Most memorable was entire set he did with Tower of Power at Winterland. Also same with Cold Blood (Lydia Pense) at a club, back then, on the Marina in San Leandro.
My youngest (Jon) is a session musician in Southern California. Jon made a point, talking about Bishop included for a recording, saying his playing was top notch and he looked happy/healthy/vital. That was 3rd time Jon played with him. This was about 3 years ago.
So Elvin is still doing sessions. Nice story.
This might work as an epitaph for Trump: “Can’t Even Do Wrong Right”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe38Rlksi8M
One can only hope. (Thx for link)
Since the din of all this noise has once again provided excuse to ignore America’s most forgotten holiday, I wish all you Dads out there a HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!!!
That has lead me down the Elvin Bishop archives…
Love it.
From that list of six bullet points, the one that fascinates me the most is “financial information of third parties.” Especially the last three words.
Who might those third parties be, in a case like this? What leaps to my mind is money that Trump spent with others, either to move documents around (overtime for MaL staff?), to store them somewhere, or to keep someone’s loyalty and buy their silence.
For instance, four months after the DOJ executed the search warrant last August, Trump’s people alerted the FBI that they had discovered more documents in a West Palm Beach storage facility. If I were the DOJ, I’d want to know when the lease on that storage unit began. Was it rented in January 2021, when Trump was moving all kinds of stuff from DC to MaL? Or was it rented in May 2022 on the day after Trump received the subpoena to turn over all documents with classification markings? The former might be a simple need for more storage space during the move — something ordinary folks do all the time — but the latter would stink to high heaven.
Likewise, if Trump paid anyone for extra services, or gave them an outright bribe, Trump has to worry about whether the DOJ knows about it or not. If those folks discussed their financial ties to Trump with the DOJ and Grand Jury, that’s another big legal shoe waiting to drop.
Remember how Trump carefully structured his payoff to Stormy Daniels and tried to hide it by calling it “legal fees” on the Trump org books? DOJ knows how Trump operates, and now Trump has to worry about every slightly shady financial arrangement he may have made with respect to this investigation.
Yes, it’s speculation on my part, but it certainly fits with Trump’s standard operating procedure.
Mighty solid speculation, it’s getting clearer and clearer that, at least to me, more than one first hand witness has flipped. Documents case or January 6th, take your pick.
i’m interested in the source of any money that may have flowed into Walt Nauta’s accounts. any of the MAL “visitors” would immediately spot Nauta as the box wrangler. from there…
True, but Nauta isn’t a third party whose financial information would be shielded from the defense.
Nauta is frequently recognized in media as Trump’s “Body Man” a role I was not familiar with, then a guy in a bar observed that he changes Trump’s Depends diapers. If that is true should not be hard for JSmith to flip him!
“Body man” has forever been a thing with Presidents. Even on TV, check out Charlie Young on West Wing.
True. And in Episode 1 of Season 3 of the TV series The West Wing, Charlie also learns the cost hiring a lawyer after it becomes public that President Bartlett failed to disclose his multiple sclerosis condition during his first run for President. I couldn’t find a video clip, so here’s the dialog:
This episode aired in 2001, so $100K in 2001 is about $171 in 2023 dollars, but who knows if attorney fees have only kept up with inflation over the past 2 decades?
And Nauta, who was born in 1982 or 1983 per wikipedia, would have been old enought to have watched this portentous episode when it aired.
Lol, “They will knock on your door one morning.”
Yeah.
Maybe “process server” was too wordy for TV? :-)
Heh, process servers don’t come in dark suits. Those other guys do though.
“Body man” is a term used in boxing. It’s usually “valet” for the guy who takes care of clothing and helps his boss dress/undress.
According to Noel Casler, Trump’s ‘body’ men do indeed clean up after him.
Noel was around that scene for a long time and witnessed a lot of crap (I gather both figuratively and literally), and for as long as he’s been talking about what happened behind the scenes on the TV show and beauty contests, he’s never been called out or sued.
He worked with a lot of musicians too over the years and has some wonderful stories. You can find his writing on substack.
The timestampled geolocation of personal phones in MAL to fill the gaps in the tapes is an intriguing thought.
By “third party” I wonder if that term could also include phone details of the people/teams hired by Trump (after the FBI executed the criminal search warrant of MAL in Aug 2022 and retrieved an abundance of responsive documents) as they reportedly searched other Trump properties for any responsive documents of the May 2022 DOJ subpoena?
A little more than half way through his “remarks” at Bedminster after the arraignment, TRUMP said: https://www.c-span.org/video/?528671-1/president-trump-remarks-court-appearance
Perfect excerpt is perfect. He used the word lawyer/lawyers five times inside 63 words and lawlessly once.
Anybody ever ask Trump if he plays poker?
If anyone were to ask Trump if he plays poker, he’d, of course, say he was world’s greatest poker player, bar none, other champions stood with tears in their eyes begging him not to go pro on the poker circuit.
But the truth is, if you sat down at a poker table with him, you’d be able to read him like a children’s bedtime story and take him for everything until he gave up (probably after the first round).
It’s all sifting tea leaves, but I’m wondering to what extent he’s speaking to his current legal team and not just his past representation or his supporters in general.
Trump may be raising the spectre of pierced privilege in trying to scare his current attorneys away from from all but the most limited communications with DOJ, and for that matter a lot of normal work on the case.
He may fear his attorneys getting a better picture of the risks of representing him if they communicate fully with DOJ and work on all of the angles of the case.
He may think well informed, open minded attorneys are more likely to give him recommendations he doesn’t want, and are more likely to raise objections he doesn’t want to hear. Statements like this may be partly an attempt to convince them to stick to his script, although I realize it’s getting increasingly hard to find attorneys who are blind to how he is a real problem.
Here are some excerpts from a story that may interest you, Peterr. It also might explain that blue storage container in the MAL parking lot that Rayne mentioned.
“…Emails show GSA officials rented an 8-by-10-foot storage unit in July 2021 for the former president at a private facility in nearby West Palm Beach and then arranged to ship more than 3,000 pounds of boxes from Virginia [Crystal City] to the unit, as well as another nearly 1,500 pounds of boxes to Mar-a-Lago in September.”
“The documents show one employee who was listed as a contact for the shipment to the storage unit was Kitty Gubello, a longtime employee of Mar-a-Lago — an example of how thoroughly Trump intermingled his public and private lives. (Asked for comment, Gubello wrote in a text message: “My allegiance is to the club and the family. You will get nothing out of me.”)”
…..
“One person familiar with the Virginia [Crystal City] office called it “not especially secure” — the 12th floor of a high rise…”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/12/18/trump-life-after-presidency/
Timing may not be right. I didn’t see that blue container in the lot earlier than October 2022 well after the warrant had been executed on Mar-a-Lago. Can’t rule it out but that’s nearly a year’s difference in timing.
Let’s stick a pin in this, though, because wackier things have happened in Trump’s orbit. Thanks!
Along the lines of continuing / other investigations, has anyone heard more of (or even tracked the electronic docket of) the other 4 or so sealed indictments filed in SDFL the same day as Criminal Defendant 1’s? Before I realized Nauta was indicted with T, I had assumed he was one and that the attorney who sighed the documents affidavit was another. I have ideas about others but they are even more speculative so I’ll hold off saying more. Anyone heard anything new on those?
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My personal suspicion (and I know it’s just a shot it the dark) is that DOJ has had cooperating witnesses at Bedminster for a while now, and putting Walt Nauta on the Florida indictment was a shot across the bow for anyone else who was on the fence in terms of cooperating with DOJ. It would explain why DOJ seems to be ignoring Bedminster. They’re not. They already had–and have–eyes there.
(I’d have to go back and reread the NARA letter and the subsequent subpoena again to be sure, but I don’t recall those requests being specific to Mar-a-Lago. If they weren’t, then there’s already a NARA letter and a subpoena covering Bedminster, DOJ is just watching to see what’s happening there.)
Oh boy, thanx for that. I don’t know how long it’s gunna take for folks in the media to catch up before they all end up with egg all over their faces.
Okay, so it looks to me like the subpoena was directly to Evan Corcoran, who was the official custodian of Trump’s records, and covers documents in Trump’s possession or control. It isn’t location-specific. In fact, it says that if any classified documents are found, the FBI will come to the place of their location to retrieve them.
The response to the subpoena, which was written by Corcoran and signed by Bobb, says that they only looked for documents in Florida.
I have no idea what to make of any of this. From a legal standpoint, I can understand that the government may not have enough evidence to meet the threshold of probable cause, so they can’t get a search warrant for Bedminster. But from a national defense standpoint, the government knows that there are still documents missing, and Bedminster is one place they might be. I don’t see how you cut the baby in half here.
A concern of mine would be the time he has by now had to make shit go away. Get a warrant, search Bedminster, turn up empty, and we’ll never hear the stream-of-Oscar-Worthy-aggrieved-“consciousness” end of it. From not only Trump, but the entire GOP Amen Choir.
I’m still interested in Ivana’s burial site. She died July 14, 2022, a busy time for Trump. The commercial digging equipment used for graves could be handy in burying containers filled with files. Not necessarily under a coffin, but once the equipment is on site and busy, it could be deployed for a short time not far away without raising much concern. Speculation, but well within Trump’s behavior set.
Isn’t July 2022 when Molly Michael (and her phone) stopped working for Trump?
I wonder if Molly’s last day was before or after Ivana was buried?
I’d say it makes no sense for Trump to bury documents, but considering we’re talking about a guy who chewed up papers and flushed them down the toilet…nothing would be a surprise at this point.
I keep forgetting that particular point. Someone asked me last week why so many people insisted Trump buried documents with Ivana in Bedminster and I could only come up with rational explanations when that one — he’s chewed up and flushed documents even while in office under the eye of staffers — should have been my answer.
A rat is as a rat does.
I think some of that is because her coffin appeared to be so very heavy, as she was cremated.
Yes, there was a photo of burly pallbearers carrying her large coffin out of her NY home, appearing to struggle with the weight. But supposedly only cremains were inside. At the time, quite a number of folks said, hmmm, that’s odd, cremains, even in a big box, are not that heavy. That combined with the fact that Ivana was planted right in plain view of the Bedminster clubhouse, it triggered off a mini conspiracy theory which petered out because, well, libs don’t generally put much truck in conspiracy theories.
The further extent trump goes to hide his power was at Walter Reed
Instrumentalism
Which is more important to trump: his rump, his ex-wife’s memory or his power?
Yeah, no yeah. Means to power. All day
The problem with the the-documents-were-buried theory is that it’s unnecessarily complex:
– if he wants to access the documents again, digging them up is slow and would be weird enough that someone’s likely to notice;
– if he wanted to dispose of them, there are considerably simpler ways (shred, burn) to do it
Burying them would be a sort of Rube Goldberg contraption; rather more likely that (if they exist), they’re just sitting in boxes in a closet somewhere in Bedminster’s clubhouse. Never underestimate laziness.
Rational and Trump are not words that normally go together. Trump tried the, shov’em in the closet and bath already, and the feds found them. He might try something that keeps them around but harder for the feds to find.
The golf course he owns must routinely have small construction equipment digging, turning, and plowing. It will be interesting to see if and when the feds turn over Bedminster and any other golf or other properties for such things.
Any documents that were at Bedminster are long gone and a even a search warrant wouldn’t find them. I don’t think Trump is that stupid.
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Well, up until January 2021 we didn’t think Trump was stupid enough to try an autogolpe. Or stupid enough to try and steal original classified documents. Or stupid enough to wantonly obstruct an investigation into his possession of said documents after being asked for them and given ample time to return them. Or…pick hundreds of other equally stupid choices Trump has made.
It’s best not to underestimate the bottom on this, and by now I think Special Counsel likewise hasn’t.
Alas, stupid is bottomless, as we find every day.
The Don has amply demonstrated that when he wants to hang onto something, he hangs onto it, regardless of the problems it might cause him.
There are subpoenas and likely other seizure orders that we are not aware of. If those are carried out in secret and responded to in secret, we would not know. Not every lawyer and investigation is going to leak. It really depends on the circumstance and whether or not Trump’s team, etc, care to disclose it. Not everything around Trump is leaked immediately. What we see in the news is the stuff that someone somewhere >wants to disclose<. Now think of all the things that the government and Trump and other potential targets in the various criminal and civil investigations swirling around all Trump's crimin' are not ready to disclose just yet…
For example, let's say you are an active cooperating witness and/or someone who has turned over everything asked for in a subpoena, etc, etc. Would you immediately broadcast that to the world? Would the Jack Smith's team leak that to the press?
Yeah, some people and organizations >do not< want to be in the crosshairs any more than they already potentially are. Let's just assume that there's a ton of things we aren't aware of here.
Questions
Initially the transport of boxes out of MAL was a wild fact not completely verified. Now it is even mentioned in the indictment, isn’t it?
Some documents are missing and unaccounted for. Have the lawyers of TFG said anything about this?
Will there perquisitions to locate these ?
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There’s one explanation for missing surveillance footage that would be simple and fit the facts:
Once the items were stashed in any of the known locations (stage, bathroom, business center, storage room) then the visitors to those areas would tend to be pretty incriminating if someone known to be an outsider walked in unimpeded. So maybe they just scrubbed anyone not employed at MAL as a matter of course.
I remember way back in 2016, before inauguration, stories of security services stressed* about tfg’s likely effect on US secrets etc. Since then I have idly wondered if those agencies might have used tfg as a route to pass along strategic false or distorted intelligence, or even neutral items which would allow them to track such leaks. Such a proven leak could be a devastating blow to tfg in court.
—
* to put it mildly
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That’s entirely possible. And even if it isn’t/wasn’t the case, it’s a good story to propagate…
Possiblly the earliest posting of the video.
Even I can count the 8 boxes being carried to Trump’s plane to Bedminster as posted by the daily mail May 9, 2021.
A woman carries one box with an attache case on top into the passenger compartment. Leather bound box?
Video not working on the archive for me.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210510125240/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9560663/Melania-Trump-wears-polka-dots-celebrate-Mothers-Day-Mar-Lago-Barron-Donald.html
I counted 9, but it could be 8. A direct link to the video is in my post above.
Can Trump not exercise his right to a jury trial here, and go with just judge Cannon? The resulting pressure on her would be immense, but Trump might think it was his best shot.
Does he hope for at least a single MAGA juror out of 12, or a judge that has ruled favourably towards him in the past. I can’t imagine Cannon would be willing to go there, considering the apparent evidentiary overload, but we don’t know everything yet.
To waive a jury trial requires both parties. What do you mean be “evidentiary overload? Federal courts can deal.
I only meant that the public facts look like justifying a ‘not guilty’ would take a lot of imagination. The evidence seems overwhelming in nature, not in volume.
I know we don’t have all the facts, and that the defence gets a turn at bat, but it seems as slam dunk as a case ever gets. Time will tell. Please forgive the mixed sport metaphors.
There is publicly understood information. There is no “evidence”, that gets adduced in court.
And the information that appears likely to be adduced as evidence at court seems overwhelming. I would really like your view, in particular, as to the viability of Trump waving his right to a jury.
Why would a guy who craves attention and is addicted to theatricality waive his right to a jury trial?
Because he has what he views as a loyal judge, and isn’t sure about a jury. Loyalty (to him) is the biggest thing in the world to him. He may think it’s his best shot.
He’s a narcissist who thereby thinks emotionally and emotions are stupid. They are right more often than the should be though.
Naw, the government isn’t going to do that.
Doesn’t override his need for adoration from the crowd. And as bmaz says, the gold standard for a criminal trial is conviction by a jury. The feds aren’t likely to ignore that.
“particularly given the documents that went to Bedminster, never to be heard from again, and the gaps in surveillance footage”
Bedminster flight, we’ve all seen the footage showing what appeared to be boxes(that looked similar to the boxes he took to MAL)being loaded on a plane…we read in the indictment the conversation about taking boxes to, loading them on a plane bound for Bedminster…We’ve been told the invasion of Iran documents are still missing and i’m pretty darn sure NARA what else is still missing.
I wouldn’t be surprised if missing documents location is known, and accessible to authorities…DOJ Just biding their time until the right moment to produce…like perhaps after asking a defendant/witness on the stand..”Have all the documents government asked returned been returned”
Because, if say midstream through this trial it gets revealed there’s another stash of documents at Bedminster, or somewhere else…Big Trouble for Trump…
I have no doubt that the intelligence powers that be…If they had one major fear, it was Trump selling out America, especially the way he left(they literally dragged DJT out)office…..Pretty sure there are always “intelligence” eyes on him.
Stat tuned
Trump examining doc boxes to cull what he values out does not jive with portrayals of him not a reader and as being inattentive, puzzled, bored during briefings, in short, a dolt.
OOH, there have been reports that while pres, he did ask if he could keep certain docs, and did despite concerns expressed by the preventers.
Regardless, starting back when he met with Kislak and Lavorev alone, did not an alarm go off in the IC that hey we have to watch every document this guy handles.
Who is the equivalent of the librarian/ clerk/ person in Oval officer whose job was to track these documents ? There cant be just one copy. of TS DOCS.
Clapper ? Brennan ? Kelley ? Nobody was smart enough to make sure someone was watching him ?
Apparently we have two Rrumps. One who doesn’t know what he is looking at, and one who does. ?
He understands stuff that relates to himself and his personal interests. We know that much. That his interests are not those of the public, or the US government, is also known.
(He likes souvenirs. Think of those magazine covers and the “trophies” he’s extorted.)
He likes anything that might give him leverage or increase his prestige. This is not unusual for the heads of crime families…and other competent politicians, etc. The witness of incidents at Bedminster, listed in the criminal indictment, seems to bear out that reasoning for Trump’s retention of some of these documents.
I could be as simple as him hoarding documents that someone else told him were important to “win his case.”
Kash Patel says it. Gorka agrees. Fitton assures. So Trump keeps it.
“They are totally exonerating!”
Except some of his lawyers may have told him that that wasn’t a good idea?
Sure, but those fuddy duddies don’t care about What’s Important™, which is Trump’s fragile psyche.
I’ve started reading “When the Heavens Went on Sale” by Ashlee Vance. Until reading the first part of this book, I did not understand the degree to which commercially launched satellites record activities all over the world. Every. Single. Minute.
I have no idea if satellite imagery might be helpful to the prosecution in tracking records taken to a particular location, assuming that the records were moved in boxes.
Presumably someone on the prosecution team has investigated (or will investigate) this possibility.
You can get photos with that kind of accuracy – 6 inches or better – but they’ll cost.
If you’re aware of the possibility, time your criming for a cloudy day. I realize in this case there may not have been enough notice.
Ah, so when I start my Puget Sound post-retirement criming side hustle, I’ll be able to work pretty much any day I’d like…summers excepted.
What is possible is amazing, but what is available retrospectively is much less.
I use imagery from several commercial low earth orbit satellite constellations. The resolution available from a set of 50 or 150 satellites chasing each other in the same polar orbit is amazing, but the rate limiting step is the downlink. These aren’t geostationary satellites along the equator with permanent uplink/downlink. Even for the 2.5m pixel daily imagery, only a tiny fraction of what the sensors capture (and the satellites buffer) can be downlinked and potentially stored. You can’t order up that imagery from a date in the past. Rather, for something like greenup phenology you have to pre-order 60 days of a specific path/row target. Active wildfires get essentially no lead time on the pre-order, and the downlink stream gets processed and rectified in a matter of hours, but they still only get what they order before the pass. The best retrospective imagery from the past 2-3 years that I have access to is composited across days, with only 2 or 3 images per year at any location (some of which have clouds).
My limited understanding of national security related satellites with much higher resolution is that they too can only downlink a small fraction of what those sensors record. Further, they can’t record & downlink that resolution for swaths wide enough to be overlapping between consecutive orbits. Therefore, they have some form of tilting on a flyby to target specific locations, and thus can capture several images of that location an hour or so apart from slightly different E-W angles, but again locations have to be ordered up before the event. And they, of course, are prohibited by law from recording over the US.
Back in the early to mid 90s, I had a case where I really needed satellite imagery of a crime scene. I subpoenaed the pertinent agencies, including the NRO. They did not like that. The Russians just sold us theirs.
you’re overstating the usefulness of satellite imagery. The Sats have to be in place, they orbit, and that’s not a plausible thing here. You’d basically have to have on over Bedminster and get lucky
A horrifying thought I just had is that if they ever did nail Trump with satellite imagery, you’d see a giant shift in GOP belief in the flat earth conspiracy theory.
“Those images are faked because satellites aren’t real!”
Third party financial records…
I initially thought direct payments for document delivered by trump but that would be structured in a round about way, org crime style, like the eye-popping Saudi $2B tip to Jared, I’m sure trump got a piece of that in some way and that might eventually be tied into trump’s documents harvest. Sharing is caring. (At some point Javanka started keeping very obvious distance from MAL and I think they realized the risk of the criminal vortex that was developing there, time will tell if they jumped back in time.)
But possibly lots of nuts & bolts payola along the way, large unexplained cash showing up in accounts of MAL staff to buy their cooperation & silence – beyond just Nauta. Payments to the Calamaris and others at other trump locs. Follow up FBI interviews about large cash deposits and seeing Nauta trudging behind trump in and out of the courtroom may loosen some tongues, more MAL “rat” problems. Animal Jack Smith will give trump and his GOP defense chorus a lot more to wail about in coming months. trump investigations are marathons not sprints.
Boxes on Parade
Keep afloat, let’s have a chat,
About juries you can sidestep,
Just direct your feet,
To the flipping side of the street.
Can’t you be an acrobat,
With a snappy tune in your step?
Life can be so sweet,
On the flipping side of the street.
Your problems are all man-made,
With those boxes on parade,
Despite a motorcade,
A rover can cross over.
If you want to be a gent,
It’s the perfect switch, lucky fella,
Just settle your feet,
On the flipping side of the street.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mvIOszhiHM
“Pickpocket Swingers – On the Sunny Side of the Street”
Lucian Truscott’s column pays thanks to Marcy:
“…the protective order includes, and here I am indebted to the masterful and eagle-eyed Marcy Wheeler of the ‘Emptywheel’ blog who pulled these gems out of the protective order…”
https://luciantruscott.substack.com/p/whats-next
Now it is clear that DOJ was dragging its feet for months
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/06/19/fbi-resisted-opening-probe-into-trumps-role-jan-6-more-than-year/
[Thanks for updating your username to meet the 8 letter minimum. I assume this is what you’re doing by using “Benoit Roux” instead of “Broux” — please stick with this username going forward. /~Rayne]
Makes it sound like the January 6th committee wasn’t just grandstanding. They did important work that embarrassed DOJ into moving forward.
That is one of the bigger loads of crap I have ever seen in my life. But it is always easy to blow shit on the internet, isn’t it?
True to form, bmaz. Great job staying in character. I admire your commitment.
My commitment is to honesty and not hysterical bullshit. So thanks for all the admiration!
Meh. Pretty much recirculated garbage. You start conspiracy investigations at the bottom and work up. Apparently now that is “breaking news”.
From the WP article:
”Before Garland was confirmed, Sherwin, senior Justice Department officials and Paul Abbate, the top deputy to FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, quashed a plan by prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office to directly investigate Trump associates for any links to the riot, deeming it premature, according to five individuals familiar with the decision. Instead, they insisted on a methodical approach — focusing first on rioters and going up the ladder. The strategy was embraced by Garland, Monaco and Wray.
But at some point, it became clear that the bottom-up approach that had dominated nearly a year of the government’s time had not yielded any significant connection to Trump’s orbit. “It had become clear that the odds were very low that ‘bottom-up’ was ever going to get very high,” said one of those individuals. “At some point, there was no ladder from here to there.” ”
No clue who you are, nor where you came from, but thanks for posting up a portion of an article I read from the get go. You, and your posit, is still full of shit.
As is that WaPo article. But, hey, grab on to some ignorance if it makes you feel good. Bottom up was not just a year and a half, it is always how conspiracy investigations have been done. And will be in the future.
Only a few people were killed or maimed on Jan 6, 2021. So, what’s the hurry in investigating it, right? Only a few active or retired military intelligence officers were involved. No need to get to the bottom of it quick, obviously. Best to take one’s time…
That is straight up ignorant bullshit. But, please, spew some more of it here.
No clue who I am? My username is my name Mr “bmaz”, whoever you are. You can google me if you wish. This is a web site to discuss and express views. I have always done this respectfully. Clearly, you are an experienced person regarding the law, but for a reason that escapes me, you are only able to adopt a grumpy attitude and refuse to explain yourself. You don’t like DOJ, you don’t like Congress, you don’t like questions. Frankly, I don’t know what you like. If I taught all my science class like this, I would have gotten fired long ago. I am glad that the country doesn’t have to rely on your judgement to move on with doing something about J6.
Thanks for your continued support!
And I think you think I gave a shit. Philippine Jeeves.
At least from the public’s perspective, when J6th happened, the immediate focus was somewhat narrowly on the violence and whether or not Trump intended to incite the violence. It took about a year to uncover the concerted efforts to overthrow the election through fake electors, pressure on Pence, the DOJ, Congress, etc. The initial focus by the FBI and DOJ seems appropriate as does the traditional approach of start on the small fry and work your way to the top. The J6 Committee did great work exposing the scope of the effort. But collecting sufficient and admissible evidence takes time, especially when witnesses are uncooperative.
Thanks, bmaz. Those who remember Watergate know DOJ started at the bottom and worked their way up. But Washington Post and the media in general hew to the foot-dragging line. Think of all the convictions to date for the Jan. 6 attack, while the media and punditocracy twitted that juries wouldn’t convict for seditious conspiracy.
[FYI – I have changed your username to match the one you’ve used previously as I suspect you didn’t intend to use your real name. /~Rayne]
Watergate is different because there was arraignment of people very quickly who had direct ties to CREEP and the White House. As it was, Judge Sirica was on the case early on and wasn’t letting go of this scandal and its broader implications.
Interestingly, you’d think that disrupting the transfer of power itself directly by bum-rushing the US Capitol would garner a bit more urgency. On the other hand, some politicians (and lawyers, etc) would argue that not going into histrionics is a better stabilizing move these days. I mean, we all hope we have time to enjoy a pluralistic society instead of descending into fascism…the problem being that when fascism comes to town, slow walking investigations isn’t going to get us pluralists more than a short stick in the end.
Listen dumbass, you are done with this shit. You are straight up selling a lie. Get out.
Not sure why you want to be insulting about this…
Mike Flynn was military intelligence. There was at least one psyops officers involved. I’ll grant you that most active duty personnel so far arrested are/were Marines…
ref https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/01/20/marines-charged-jan6-capitol/
Because you are in unhinged land. Please stop.
The psyops officer resigned her commission before Jan 6:
ref. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/emily-rainey-fort-bragg-captain-resigngs-washington-rally-army-investigating/
Thanks, Rayne, for guarding my name. I have one senior moment a day. It lasts all day.
Although this thread is finished, I would just like to add that the FBI and the intelligence community as a whole try hard not to burn their sources, and we don’t know what those sources have produced and are producing for DOJ while the media wrings its hands over “delay.”. It’s trite but true that complex investigations are like icebergs, mostly invisible to the naked eye. And that’s where we want them to stay until DOJ is ready to speak with its filings.
Yup. I sure would love to know what was in Giuliani’s electronic devices because he’s a nexus between January 6 and Russian influence ops, but as you note, there be icebergs.