Former President Trump is calling for Special Counsel Jack Smith’s arrest after the prosecutors handling the 45th president’s classified documents case admitted seized documents are no longer in their original order and sequence.  

“Now, Deranged Jack has admitted in a filing in front of Judge Cannon to what I have been saying happened since the Illegal RAID on my home, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida – That he and his team committed blatant Evidence Tampering by mishandling the very Boxes they used as a pretext to bring this Fake Case,” Trump posted to Truth Social on Friday. “These deeply Illegal actions by the Politicized ‘Persecutors’ mandate that this whole Witch Hunt be DROPPED IMMEDIATELY. END THE ‘BOXES HOAXES.’ MAGA2024!”

“ARREST DERANGED JACK SMITH. HE IS A CRIMINAL!” Trump added in a follow-up post. 

Prosecutors admitted in a court filing on Friday that “there are some boxes where the order of items within that box is not the same as in the associated scans.” The prosecutors had previously told the court that the documents were “in their original, intact form as seized.” 

JUDGE UNSEALS FBI FILES IN TRUMP CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS CASE, INCLUDING DETAILED TIMELINE OF MAR-A-LAGO RAID

“The Government acknowledges that this is inconsistent with what Government counsel previously understood and represented to the Court,” a footnote in the filing reads. 

The filing comes after one of Trump’s co-defendants in the case asked for a delay as lawyers were having trouble figuring out the origin of some of the documents in the evidence boxes. 

The FBI agents seized 33 boxes of documents in August 2022 from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, spurring another legal battle that Trump has called a “scam.” The investigation is overseen by special prosecutor Smith, who Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed to the job, and has charged Trump with 40 felony counts, including allegedly violating the Espionage Act, making false statements to investigators and conspiracy to obstruct justice. 

GOP SLAMS ‘WEAPONIZATION’ OF DOJ AFTER TRUMP’S MAR-A-LAGO RAIDED BY FBI; DEMS CALL IT ‘ACCOUNTABILITY’

Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and slammed the case as an “Election Inference Scam” promoted by the Biden administration and “Deranged Jack Smith.”

Special Counsel Jack Smith arrives to give remarks on a recently unsealed indictment, including four felony counts, against former President Trump on Aug. 1, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

The case is slated to head to trial on May 20, though the date may change, with presiding Judge Aileen Cannon underacting a trove of documents in the lead-up to the trial that have provided notable updates to the case. 

BIDEN ADMINISTRATION INVOLVEMENT

Judge Cannon recently unredacted more than 300 pages of evidence in the case, including emails and conversations related to the Biden administration’s contact with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) the year prior to the documents’ seizure from Trump’s home, Real Clear Investigations recently reported. Biden has previously publicly said he was not involved in the case, though the filings show other White House officials were involved in the early stages of the investigation. 

TRUMP SAYS MAR-A-LAGO HOME IN FLORIDA ‘UNDER SIEGE’ BY FBI AGENTS

The unredacted documents allege that just weeks after Trump left office in 2021, the White House Office of Records Management under the Biden administration began working with NARA “on exaggerated claims related to records handling under the Presidential Records Act,” Trump’s attorney wrote in a court filing to compel discovery.  

The Archives’ general counsel, Gary Stern, sent a letter to Trump’s Presidential Records Act representatives in May 2021 asking the whereabouts of “roughly two dozen boxes of original Presidential records [that] have not been transferred to NARA.” Stern explained that he “had several conversations” with White House Office of Records Management officials where they discussed “concerns” regarding Trump’s possession of the documents, according to Real Clear Investigations. 

President Biden speaks at Abbotts Creek Community Center during an event to promote his economic agenda in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Jan. 18, 2024. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

Stern’s letter detailed that the team was looking for “original correspondence between President Trump and North Korean Leader Kim Jung-un” and “the letter that President Obama left for President Trump on his first day in office,” Real Clear reported.

TRUMP’S LAWYERS PUSH FOR DISMISSAL OF CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS CASE, ARGUING ‘PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY’

He added that he understood that transitioning administrations was “very chaotic” and that it could take “several more months” to transfer the documents, The Federalist reported. By June of that year, a national archivist appointed by former President Obama, David Ferriero, told the Trump team he was running “out of patience,” unredacted filings show. The filing states that Ferriero dismissed “good-faith efforts by President Trump’s PRA representatives to address issues raised by NARA.” 

This view shows former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate on Aug. 10, 2022, in Palm Beach, Florida. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

The filing continued that Ferriero allegedly “threatened” a PRA representative for Trump in August 2021, saying he presumed 24 boxes of “alleged – and non-existent” documents were “destroyed” and that he was taking the issue to the DOJ. Ferriero and Stern contacted DOJ officials and Deputy White House Counsel Jonathan Su. Stern met with Su at the White House, according to White House logs reported by Real Clear Investigations. 

“At this point, I am assuming [the boxes] have been destroyed. In which case, I am obligated to report it to the Hill, the DOJ, and the White House,” Ferriero wrote in a warning to Trump’s team in August 2021, according to the documents. 

“To my knowledge, nothing has been destroyed,” a Trump representative responded.

TRUMP DEMANDS JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ‘IMMEDIATELY’ DROP CHARGES AGAINST HIM IN CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS CASE AFTER BIDEN DECISION 

The unredacted filing states that in September, Stern emailed Ferriero and a deputy archivist that he had “reached out to DOJ counsel about this issue” and that “WH Counsel is now aware of the issue.”

Another email, sent on Sept. 15, details that Stern reportedly spoke with Su to “get him up to speed on the issue and the dispute whether there are 12 or 24 missing boxes,” which was followed by another email that “[White House counsel] is ready to set up a call to discuss the Trump boxes.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment Sunday but did not immediately receive a reply.

DOJ INSTRUCTS NARA HOW TO PROCEED

Trump’s team delivered 15 boxes of documents to NARA in January 2022, with the Archives’ White House liaison director reporting back to Ferriero and another archivist that the boxes mostly contained newspaper clippings and magazines, in addition to “lots of classified records,” according to court filings. 

Unsealed documents show that following the review of the returned boxes, Su urged Stern to contact Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. Monaco’s office subsequently “instructed” how Stern could proceed with the matter, including contacting the inspectors general for the Archives and intelligence community, and DOJ National Security Division Chief Jay Bratt, court filings reported by Real Clear show.

This image, contained in the indictment against former President Trump, shows boxes of records stored in a bathroom and shower in the Lake Room at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. (Justice Department via AP)

Stern complied with the instructions, and a criminal referral was sent to the DOJ on Feb. 9. 

News of the criminal referral sparked condemnation from Republicans that it was spurred by political spite at the hands of Democrats against Trump. 

TRUMP EXPECTED BACK IN COURT FOR CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS HEARING IN SPECIAL SECURE FLORIDA FACILITY

“At no time and under no circumstances were NARA officials pressured or influenced by Committee Democrats or anyone else,” Acting National Archivist Debra Steidel Wall wrote in a letter to congressional Republicans in 2022. 

ALLEGATIONS OF IMPROPER ATTEMPTS TO INFLUENCE WALT NAUTA’S COUNSEL

Trump was charged alongside his personal aide and valet, Walt Nauta, as well as Mar-a-Lago maintenance chief Carlos De Oliveira. Unredacted court filings show Nauta’s attorney was allegedly threatened he could lose a shot at becoming a federal judge if Nauta didn’t flip on Trump. 

A motion filed in June 2023, and recently unredacted, reported that Nauta’s attorney, Stanley Woodward, met with DOJ National Security Division Chief Jay Bratt just weeks after the raid on Mar-a-Lago and “was led to a conference room where Mr. Bratt awaited with what appeared to be a folder containing information about Mr. Woodward,” The Federalist reported. 

This view shows former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on March 31, 2023. (Reuters/Ricardo Arduengo)

“Mr. Bratt thereupon told Mr. Woodward he didn’t consider him to be a ‘Trump lawyer,’ and he further said that he was aware that Mr. Woodward had been recommended to President Biden for an appointment to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia,” the motion stated, the Federalist reported. “Mr. Bratt followed up with words to the effect of ‘I wouldn’t want you to do anything to mess that up.’ Thereafter, Mr. Bratt advised Mr. Woodward that ‘one way or the other’ his client, Walt Nauta, would be giving up his lavish lifestyle of ‘private planes and golf clubs’ and he encouraged Mr. Woodward to persuade Mr. Nauta to cooperate with the government’s investigation (this was prior to the appointment of the Special Counsel).”

Bratt was later appointed lead prosecutor to Jack Smith’s case. 

The DOJ argued that “at no point during the meeting did Woodward suggest that any of the prosecutors’ comments were improper.” 

TRUMP FLORIDA JUDGE CANNON DENIES TRUMP DISMISSAL ON ‘UNCONSTITUTIONAL VAGUENESS’

Legal experts, including James Trusty, Trump attorney and former chief of the Justice Department’s organized crime unit, have said the allegations in the filing amount to “extortion.” 

“You had a high-level DOJ official – according to a statement submitted as an officer-to-the-court, to a federal judge – told Stanley Woodward, a defense attorney representing Walt Nauta that it would be a shame, essentially, if he endangered his pending judgeship by not flipping Nauta against President Trump,” Trusty said last year in comment to Fox News’ Mark Levin. 

‘PLASMIC ECHO’

Newly unredacted filings reveal that the FBI investigation into Trump, which officially began in March 2022 following the president and his team voluntarily handing over boxes of documents, was dubbed “Plasmic Echo.” 

“This document contains information that is restricted to case participants,” documents unsealed last month show, Fox News Digital previously reported. It added, “PLASMIC ECHO; Mishandling Classified or National Defense Information, Unknown Subject; Sensitive Investigation Matter.”

TRUMP’S SECURITY CLEARANCE WAS ALLEGEDLY RETROACTIVELY REVOKED

Earlier this year, Trump’s legal team indicated they might use evidence showing Trump acted in “good-faith and non-criminal states of mind” when he took classified documents home to Florida due to a high-level security clearance granted by the Department of Energy. 

Unsealed, unredacted filings assert Trump had the high-level “Q clearance” granted by the DOE until last year, but that it was allegedly revoked following Trump’s indictment.

Former President Trump speaks to supporters at a rally to support local candidates on Sept. 3, 2022, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

The DOE’s “Central Personnel Clearance Index and Clearance Action Tracking System ‘reflect[ed] an active Q clearance’ for President Trump,” according to the 2024 filing, as reported by The Federalist. 

An assistant general counsel at the agency, however, “instructed that the relevant systems ‘be immediately amended’ and ‘promptly modified to reflect the terminated status of [President] Trump’s Q clearance,’” the filing states.

Former President Trump listens as David Pecker is questioned by prosecutor Joshua Steinglass during Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan, April 26, 2024, in this courtroom sketch. (Reuters/Jane Rosenberg)

Trump’s classified documents case comes as he continues a weeks-long legal battle in a Manhattan courtroom where he is facing 34 felony charges of falsifying business records. Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges and slammed the case as another “scam” and “witch hunt” promoted by the Biden administration ahead of the general election.

SPECIAL COUNSEL JACK SMITH HITS BACK AT JUDGE FOR ‘FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED LEGAL PREMISE’ IN TRUMP DOCUMENTS CASE

“This Judge has taken away my Constitutional Right to FREE SPEECH. I am the only Presidential Candidate in History to be GAGGED,” Trump wrote last week on Truth Social. 

“This whole ‘Trial’ is RIGGED, and by taking away my FREEDOM OF SPEECH, THIS HIGHLY CONFLICTED JUDGE IS RIGGING THE PRESIDENTIAL OF 2024 ELECTION. ELECTION INTERFERENCE!!!” Trump continued. 

The classified documents case, meanwhile, also opened the doors to investigations regarding classified documents in the possession of Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence. Special Counsel Robert Hur announced in February that he would not recommend criminal charges against Biden for possessing classified materials after his vice presidency, citing that Biden is “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

President Biden speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Sept. 15, 2023. (Chris Kleponis/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone from whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him – by then a former president well into his eighties – of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness,” Hur wrote in his report. 

The findings sparked widespread outrage that Biden was effectively deemed too cognitively impaired to be charged with a crime but could serve as president. Trump has meanwhile slammed the disparity in charges as a reflection of a “sick and corrupt, two-tiered system of justice in our country.” 

Kim Godwin, who made history as the first Black woman to run a broadcast TV news division, is leaving ABC News after a turbulent three-year run.

The Walt Disney Co.-owned network announced Godwin’s departure Sunday in a memo from Debra OConnell, president of News Group and Networks. Godwin joined ABC in May 2021 from CBS News, where she was an executive vice president and oversaw its diversity efforts.

OConnell said she will oversee the news division “for the time being.”

Godwin signed a new deal with ABC in February, when the company put her division under OConnell, a veteran Disney executive. The move put a layer between Godwin and top leadership at Disney, never a good sign for an executive’s future at the Burbank-based entertainment company. She had been reporting to Dana Walden, co-chairman of Disney Entertainment.

“I understood and appreciated the profound significance of being the first Black woman to lead a national broadcast news network when I accepted the role as president of ABC News a little over three years ago,” Godwin said in a note to staff that was shared with The Times. “It’s both a privilege and a debt to those who chipped away before me to lead a team whose brand is synonymous with trust, integrity and a dogged determination to be the best in the business.”

Godwin was hired 10 months after the dismissal of Barbara Fedida, longtime top executive in charge of business affairs. An internal investigation found that Fedida made what Disney called “racially insensitive comments” about the network’s Black talent. Godwin’s predecessor James Goldston, who was not implicated in the investigation, left his post as ABC News president six months after Fedida’s exit.

Godwin was brought in to improve the culture at the division. But she was beleaguered by whispered criticism from anonymous sources of her management style, which grated on the hard-nosed veterans at the network. She reportedly led “Happy Birthday” singalongs at morning meetings and emphasized life-work balance, a foreign concept to many longtimers in a division known for its cutthroat atmosphere. Godwin was also described as detached from the division’s day-to-day operations.

As part of a wave of Disney job reductions last year, Godwin made sweeping cuts in the division. Some staffers were unhappy at the treatment of veteran executives who were pushed out the door.

The National Assn. of Black Journalists issued a statement Saturday supporting Godwin and criticizing the press coverage of her tenure.

“Many of the latest articles surrounding her leadership fail to demonstrate basic journalism by providing alternative viewpoints,” NABJ said. “There seems to be an intentionality to cite anonymous sources as Godwin’s detractors, coupled with the use of derogatory or stereotypical terms to describe her.”

Godwin might have survived any issues with her management style if ABC News programs maintained their competitive positions over the past year. “Good Morning America,” the most watched morning program and the source of most of the news division’s profit, has been losing ground.

NBC’s “Today” scored an atypical weekly win over “GMA” in morning viewers last month, according to Nielsen. It was the first time in two years the program has won outside of the weeks when NBC is carrying the Olympics, or during the holiday season when viewers tune in to see the Rockefeller Plaza Christmas tree.

“Today” regularly beats “GMA” in the 25-to-54 age group advertisers prefer when buying news programming. But “CBS Mornings,” which runs third overall, has occasionally topped “GMA” in the demographic on some days as well.

“GMA” may have suffered from personnel moves that happened on Godwin’s watch. Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes, who co-hosted the afternoon show “GMA 3,” were fired last year after the tabloids exposed a romantic relationship between the two. Both were married at the time.

Robach and Holmes were frequent fill-ins on the flagship edition of “GMA,” co-anchored by George Stephanopoulos, Robin Roberts and Michael Strahan. Morning viewing is habit driven, and the departure of talent — even extended family members of a program — can be disruptive.

ABC also lost Cecilia Vega, another frequent “GMA” fill-in, to CBS, which made her a correspondent at “60 Minutes.”

Adding to the tumult, ABC News lost another veteran talent last week when meteorologist Rob Marciano was fired over alleged behavioral issues in the workplace.

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., on Sunday slammed the anti-Israel protests that have taken over college campuses nationwide as working against peace in the Middle East, adding that he’s frustrated that those taken hostage by Hamas during the Oct. 7 attack on Israel have not been put first.

Fetterman, who has been outspoken against the protesters, wondered why they are demonstrating against Israel and not Hamas, which he says has refused a recent cease-fire deal during his appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

“These kinds of protests haven’t been helpful, and ironically, they are actually working against peace in the Middle East as well,” Fetterman said. “And it’s also very strange to me that they’re not actually protesting for a cease-fire now. There’s been a very valid cease-fire that’s been on the table now and Hamas has refused to take that on.”

“And I don’t know why if we’re going to protest, why aren’t we protesting that, demanding Hamas to take that kind of a cease-fire,” the senator continued. “And that would end all of the trauma and chaos going on there in Gaza.”

BIDEN ADMINISTRATION PUTS HOLD ON US AMMUNITION SHIPMENT TO ISRAEL: REPORT

Fetterman went on to say that he does not support any kind of conditions being placed on Israel, and instead he put responsibility for the current situation entirely on Hamas.

HAMAS KINGPIN HOLED UP DEEP BELOW GAZA, SURROUNDED BY HOSTAGES USED AS HUMAN SHIELDS, SAYS EXPERT

“The situation could end right now if Hamas just surrendered and they just sent all of those hostages home again,” the senator said. “That’s also a thing that I’ve been frustrated, too, is that those hostages should really be in front of the conversations about the situation in Gaza. Sending them home would really, again, end all of this immediately.”

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The war in Gaza began after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel in which the terrorist organization killed 1,200 people and took about 250 people hostage.