Politics
New revelations in Florida documents trial put Trump on offense against 'deranged' special counsel
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.”
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.
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.”
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.”
“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.”
Politics
ICE says it will needs massive funding hike, tens of thousands more beds to implement Laken Riley Act
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is telling lawmakers that the Laken Riley Act, an anti-illegal immigration bill expected to hit President-elect Trump’s desk in the coming weeks, will cost an additional $3 billion due to the agency needing an additional 60,000 detention beds.
ICE responded to questions by Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., on the impact of the Laken Riley Act. The bill passed the House this month and looks likely to pass the Senate. It requires DHS to detain illegal immigrants who have been arrested for theft-related crimes.
It also allows for states to sue DHS for alleged failures in enforcing immigration law. The bill is named after Laken Riley, a Georgia student who was murdered by an illegal immigrant from Venezuela last year. It has picked up the support of Republicans as well as a number of Democrats.
BIDEN DHS EXEMPTED THOUSANDS OF IMMIGRANTS FROM TERROR-RELATED ENTRY RESTRICTIONS IN FY 2024
In the letter, obtained by Fox, ICE says it has identified tens of thousands of illegal immigrants who would meet the criteria for arrest both on its detained docket and non-detained docket. It said that its Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) has estimated that the number of illegal immigrants on its national docket who meet the criteria would be over 60,000. The letter was first reported by Politico.
“Since the Laken Riley Act requires ERO to immediately detain those noncitizens, ERO would then require, at minimum, 64,000 additional detention beds; however this does not account for other immigration enforcement mandates that may place a need for increased detention capacity.”
SENATE DEMS TO JOIN REPUBLICANS TO ADVANCE ANTI-ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION BILL NAMED AFTER LAKEN RILEY
ICE estimates that increasing that capacity would require a funding increase of approximately $3.2 billion. Additionally, it estimates that it will need 10 new Mobile Crisis Assistance Teams (MCAT) and a HQ law enforcement officer across eight field offices, requiring an additional nearly $15 million along with associated equipment.
Notably, ERO says it currently possesses the authority to fulfill the requirements of the Act and would require no additional authorities.
The agency warned that it may have to release tens of thousands of illegal immigrants if it does not get the additional bedspace.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE IMMIGRATION COVERAGE
“…[I]f supplemental funding is not received and ICE remains at its current bed capacity, the agency would not have the detention capacity to accommodate the immediate arrest and detention of noncitizens convicted or charged with property crimes,” it says. “ERO anticipates that tens of thousands of noncitizens would need to be released by the end of the fiscal year, resulting in the potential release of public safety threats.”
As challenges to implementation, it cites the challenges of having ICE officers, and also the challenges of sanctuary cities: “A complicating factor is a lack of cooperation from ICE’s state and local law enforcement partners.”
This is not the first alarm that ICE has sounded about its funding levels, noting in its FY 24 report that it is already underfunded with its existing responsibilities.
“Throughout the year, the agency was called on to do more without commensurate funding, working within the confines of strained resources and competing priorities while steadfastly supporting the Department of Homeland Security and its component agencies in their efforts to secure the border,” the agency said.
President-elect Trump has promised to launch a mass deportation operation, in which ICE would be the operative agency. In Congress, Republicans are preparing to make significant funding changes via the budget reconciliation process. Border security and interior enforcement would likely be top priorities for Republicans, given the issues’ prominence in the 2024 election.
Politics
Rep. Nancy Pelosi will not attend Trump's inauguration
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) will not attend President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, a spokesman confirmed Thursday.
The spokesperson did not provide a reason for Pelosi’s decision to skip the ceremonial event, which is slated for the U.S. Capitol on Monday. The decision was reported earlier by ABC News.
Pelosi, 84, who has retained political prominence and influence in the Democratic Party — and her seat in the House — despite giving up her longtime leadership role after Republicans won control of the House in 2022, has long had a contentious relationship with Trump.
She also broke her hip and was hospitalized while traveling with a bipartisan congressional delegation in Luxembourg last month — though she has returned to the halls of Congress since, including for the Jan. 6 confirmation of Trump’s electoral victory.
Trump did not attend the inauguration of President Biden after losing to Biden in the 2020 election. He also denied that he lost despite all evidence to the contrary — a lie he maintains to this day. He was the first president to skip the inauguration of his successor since Andrew Johnson did so in 1869.
Pelosi has called Trump “crazy” and unfit for office. Trump has called Pelosi “evil” and an “enemy” of the country. The pair have sparred for years. Pelosi raised eyebrows when she ripped up a copy of Trump’s State of the Union speech behind him in 2020. Trump infuriated the former speaker by mocking a violent attack on her husband at the couple’s San Francisco home.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama has also announced that she will not attend the inauguration, though former President Obama will, according to the Associated Press. The former first lady also has been an outspoken critic of Trump.
Politics
Lee Zeldin, Trump’s E.P.A. Nominee, Is Short on Environmental Experience
Of all the government agencies that President-elect Donald J. Trump has threatened to shrink or eliminate, perhaps none has been a greater target than the Environmental Protection Agency.
During the first Trump administration, the nation’s top regulator of air and water pollution and industrial chemicals saw its budget slashed, leading to an exodus of employees and weakened enforcement of environmental rules.
This time, Mr. Trump could go further.
President Biden rebuilt the E.P.A. and used it to enact two powerful climate regulations aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions from tailpipes and power plants. But Mr. Trump has already promised to “kill” the agency’s climate regulations, and people close to the Trump transition have recommended ousting E.P.A. career staff, eliminating its scientific advisers, and closing an office that helps minority communities that disproportionately struggle with polluted air and water. There is even discussion of moving E.P.A. headquarters and its 7,000 workers out of Washington, possibly to Texas or Florida, as a way to shed employees.
The man who would carry out the dismantling is a former congressman from New York, Lee Zeldin, who is set to appear Thursday morning before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
The nomination of Mr. Zeldin baffled many, since he has little background in environmental regulation.
But Mr. Zeldin, 44, who ran unsuccessfully for governor of New York in 2022, is a Trump supporter who voted against certifying the results of the 2020 election. Friends say he has a long and loyal connection with the president-elect.
“They have a unique bond,” said Chris Berardini, a Republican lobbyist . “Republicans in New York tend to be always close. It’s a very lonely fraternity.”
The two men have something else in common, Mr. Berardini said. Last summer, Mr. Trump survived an assassination attempt at a campaign event. In 2022, Mr. Zeldin was attacked by a man with a pointed weapon at a campaign event. “Those are the subtle threads that weave into a personal relationship,” Mr. Berardini said.
While Mr. Zeldin is not experienced in environmental regulation, he and his allies point to his years representing his Long Island district, which included miles of coastline and had a bipartisan tradition of environmental conservation.
At the same time, Mr. Zeldin appears to have embraced Mr. Trump’s seemingly contradictory position: he says he wants clean air and water while he plans to erase regulations that ensure both, along with limits on the emissions of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels that are linked to stronger droughts, wildfires, floods.
Upon accepting the nomination to head the E.P.A., Mr. Zeldin wrote on X, “We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI. We will do so by protecting clean air and water.”
Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia, who chairs the environment committee, said Wednesday on Fox Business News of Mr. Zeldin that “By being the representative from New York, he’s seen all different types of clean air, clean water issues, and the best way to solve those problems.”
But Ms. Capito, whose home state is a major producer of coal and natural gas, also appears confident that Mr. Zeldin will execute Mr. Trump’s plans.
In a Facebook post last month, Ms. Capito wrote, “Congressman Zeldin understands the need to roll back regulatory overreach, unleash American energy, and allow Americans to build again — all while protecting public health and the environment. His skill set is well suited to implement the agenda of President Trump. ”
Mr. Zeldin has not said much about whether he accepts the established science of climate change but he was a member of the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus in Congress. However, he voted against the Inflation Reduction Act, the nation’s first major climate law, which pumped at least $370 billion into clean energy programs.
When Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York criticized Mr. Zeldin, he responded on social media, saying, “I just voted NO because the bill sucks.”
During Mr. Zeldin’s tenure in the House, he voted against clean water legislation at least a dozen times and clean air legislation at least half a dozen times, according to a scorecard by the League of Conservation Voters, an environmental group.
However, he has boasted about securing federal funds to improve the health of Long Island Sound, and he voted for a bill that would require the E.P.A. to set limits on PFAS, damaging chemicals that are persistent in the environment and the human body. The E.P.A. under the Biden administration has set strict limits on chemicals in drinking water. In 2020, he voted against legislation to slash E.P.A.’s budget.
Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, a senior Democrat on the environment committee, said he met with Mr. Zeldin Tuesday and had “a good, candid conversation.”
Still Mr. Markey questioned his qualifications to run the E.P.A., and expressed skepticism about his commitment to guard the air and water from polluting industries.
“I’m not convinced his top priority is protecting communities and our environment,” Mr. Markey said.
On climate change, Mr. Markey said Mr. Zeldin “said he believed that human activity contributes to climate change.” But he said, “My questions go to what the E.P.A. priorities would be under his leadership.”
Lisa Friedman contributed reporting.
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