Following federal prosecutors’ admission that some of the material in the Mar-a-Lago classified papers case were not in their “original, intact” state, former President Trump has called for the arrest of special counsel Jack Smith.
After the legal team for Trump’s co-defendant, Walt Nauta, requested a postponement, the prosecutors eventually gave in. The reason was that the 35 boxes confiscated by the FBI made it difficult for Nauta’s team to locate certain documents.
The government first informed the court that the only modifications were the removal of certain documents and the addition of placeholders, but Smith’s office has since admitted that this is not the case.
Trump wrote on Truth Social that the ‘criminal’ Jack Smith should be arrested.
The Department of Justice deceived the court in August 2022 by asserting that the secret papers’ blue, yellow, and red sheets signified their classification level in the widely circulated picture. The FBI substituted those cover sheets to conceal the identity of the alleged ‘classified’ papers.
The FBI established an index to match the papers’ classification marks to codes once they were transferred to the Washington Field Office (WFO). They also labeled the sensitive cover sheets inside the containers with the codes of the confiscated documents.
Even though the FBI typically substituted classified cover sheets marked with the index code for the handwritten sheets, any handwritten sheets still in the boxes do not constitute any more classified documents; they were simply left in when the cover sheets marked with the index code were added. The FBI successfully matched classification marks on documents with specific placeholder sheets in some cases, but not all.
Trump later said on Truth Social that the whole witch hunt must end immediately due to the politically motivated ‘persecutors’ extremely illegal conduct. The ‘Boxes’ hoaxes must end.
The trial involving the classified materials is set to begin in Fort Pierce, Florida, on May 20, although that date is not expected to remain unchanged. Both the prosecution and Trump’s legal team have requested a new trial date, and U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon is considering their motions.
