Former President Trump has shrugged off warnings that he could be indicted for storing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago mansion and, if indicted, accused one of his current co-defendants, according to new court documents. promised to pardon him.
Details laid out in unsealed documents as part of a wide-ranging legal battle in the Mar-a-Lago case reveal candid advice from anonymous witnesses and other details about the federal investigation.
The witness, identified in the documents only as Person 16, told Trump he should cooperate with federal investigators looking for classified documents, saying doing so could preclude prosecution.
“Give me back whatever you have. Let me come here and get everything,” witnesses said he told Trump. “Don’t give them a noble reason to indict you. They will.”
But witnesses said Trump appeared unfazed, with the ex-president reacting to the warning with “a weird ‘you’re the man’ reaction.”
The witness declined to record the conversation with the FBI, fearing retaliation. A summary of the interview describes them as individuals with security clearance and daily access to the Oval Office.
Former President Donald Trump appears in court on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, in Manhattan Criminal Court in New York. (Curtis Means/DailyMail.com, via AP, Pool)
The interview refuted Trump’s defense that there was a standard order to declassify everything owned by the former president, with witnesses saying it was the first time they heard such an order since Trump was indicted. Ta.
The witness said she repeatedly urged Trump to return the records the National Archives was seeking at the time, telling him it was “not worth getting so upset about.”
The witness also said he urged Trump’s children to receive similar warnings, noting that the former president “at times had to receive the same message from multiple people close to him.”
“There’s a problem with the boxes. They belong to the government, talk to dad, talk about restitution,” a witness said he told President Trump’s children.
The witness also mentioned a conversation with Trump’s valet Walt Nauta, who has since been charged with aiding and abetting the former president’s box removal and lying to investigators.
Witnesses said Nauta was told by people close to President Trump that the dossier incident was politically motivated and “no big deal,” even though he would be accused of lying to authorities. President Trump reportedly said he would issue a pardon in 2024.
The filing also reveals other details about the investigation, including that it was code-named “Plasma Echo.”
The witness also said President Trump only hired attorney James Trusty after seeing him on TV.
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The court documents were released by prosecutors in response to Trump’s claims that he needed access to communications from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team because he was facing political charges.
In the filing, prosecutors say there is a “need to clear the air on these issues…because the defendant’s false statements, if left unanswered, will leave a highly misleading impression.”
“Their apparent purpose is to cast doubt on the responsible conduct of diligent government employees. Defendants’ insinuations have little factual or legal relevance to discovery requests. But it should not be left uncorrected,” prosecutors wrote.
“Simply put, the government faced an unusual situation here: a former president’s calculating and persistent obstruction of the collection of presidential records that legally belong to the United States.”
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