Mar-a-Lago documents probe scrutinizes employee’s actions during 2022 summer

31 May 2023

If President Richard Nixon were still alive in 2023, he would no doubt be shocked by all the legal exposure Donald Trump is up against. The 2024 GOP presidential frontrunner is not only facing a 34-count criminal prosecution by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Jr., but also, two federal investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and special counsel Jack Smith and a Georgia probe by Fulton County DA Fani Willis.

Smith has been investigating Trump's post-2020 election activities and the January 6, 2021 insurrection — while separately probing government documents the former president was storing at Mar-a-Lago. One of the things Smith is examining, according to the Washington Post, is actions taken by a Mar-a-Lago employee in June and July 2022.

In a report published by the Post on May 30, journalists Spencer S. Hsu, Josh Dawsey and Devlin Barrett note that an employee who helped move boxes of documents at Mar-a-Lago last year has "been questioned about his conduct weeks later related to a government demand for surveillance footage from Donald Trump's property."

The employee, they report, "was seen on video footage helping another Trump aide, Walt Nauta, move boxes into a Mar-a-Lago storage room on June 2, the day before a top Justice Department official arrived with FBI agents to collect classified material in response to the subpoena."

"Authorities have also examined events in mid-July surrounding a different subpoena, which sought footage from security cameras on the property," the reporters explain. "Around that time, the employee allegedly had a conversation with an IT worker at the site about how the security cameras worked and how long images remained stored in the system, the person familiar with that aspect of the investigation said."

Hsu, Dawsey and Barrett continue, "The employee later told investigators that the conversation was innocent and was not about trying to hide anything from authorities, saying that he didn't know at the time about the investigation or subpoena, according to another person familiar with the probe. But those answers were met with skepticism, people familiar with the situation said."

Trump has been angrily railing against Smith, describing his two investigations as a "witch hunt" and insisting that any government documents he was storing at Mar-a-Lago were "declassified."

"When FBI agents secured a court order to search Mar-a-Lago in August," the Post reporters note, "they found more than 100 additional classified documents, some in Trump's office and some in the storage area. In a court filing in August explaining the search, prosecutors wrote that they had developed evidence that 'obstructive conduct' took place in connection with the response to the subpoena, including that documents 'were likely concealed and removed from the Storage Room.'"

The Washington Post's full report is available at this link (subscription required).

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