Trump Bedminster now 'a flashpoint in the conflict' between DOJ and Trumpworld: report

27 June 2023

Now that former President Donald Trump has been indicted by United States Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith for refusing to return classified documents to the National Archives that Trump stashed at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida after leaving the White House, attention is turning to what went on at Trump's golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

On Tuesday, New York Times correspondents Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman, and Jonathan Swan reported that the 542-acre compound "has turned out also to have been a focus of investigators, a flashpoint in the conflict between prosecutors and Mr. Trump's lawyers, and the scene of a central episode in Mr. Trump's indictment: a meeting in which he was recorded showing off what he described as a 'highly confidential' plan to attack Iran."

The tape "was the latest piece of evidence placing Bedminster on an almost equal footing with Mar-a-Lago," the Times explained. "Previously unreported details of the investigation show that prosecutors working for Mr. Smith have subpoenaed surveillance footage from Bedminster, much like they did from Mar-a-Lago, and fought a pitched battle with Mr. Trump's lawyers late last year over how best to search the New Jersey property."

Bedminster has not been subjected to a search warrant by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which last August retrieved some of the sensitive files that Trump withheld at Mar-a-Lago. The Timesrecalled that "the Justice Department lacked probable cause" to obtain a search warrant for Bedminster.

"But prosecutors also issued at least one subpoena for surveillance camera footage from Bedminster as well, according to two people familiar with the matter," the Times noted. "The subpoena for that footage came some time after the government's request for the Mar-a-Lago footage, the people said, though it remains unclear what the footage shows or precisely why prosecutors wanted to obtain it."

Nonetheless, the Timespointed out that Jay Bratt, the top counterintelligence official at the Justice Department, "and his team remained concerned that Mr. Trump was still holding on to classified documents in violation of a subpoena for them that the government had issued three months earlier."

Despite Team Trump's assurances that "a team of professionals with military training had searched Bedminster for classified materials," the Times added, "the Justice Department, according to court papers described by people familiar with them, was not impressed. Prosecutors complained that the search had been limited to certain areas of Bedminster and was not accompanied by a sworn statement detailing which parts of the club had been examined."

The New York Times' full report continues at this link (subscription required).

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