By Steve Neavling
Security footage at Mar-a-Lago played a key role in the criminal case against former President Trump.
Federal prosecutors used the footage to determine that boxes were removed days before federal prosecutors met with Trump’s lawyers to retrieve the classified documents, according to newly unsealed descriptions in the FBI search warrant application, the Guardian reports.
Prosecutors subpoenaed the footage in June 2022 after Trump’s lawyers returned a folder of 38 classified documents to prosecutors.
The footage, which was turned over in July 2022, showed Trump’s valet Walt Nauta removing more than 50 boxes from storage.
“The current location of the boxes removed from the storage room but not returned to it is unknown,” said the FBI agent on the investigation who drafted the affidavit.
Based on the video, prosecutors believed Trump did not return all of the classified documents because the boxes would have contained far more records.
Prosecutors were correct. When the FBI executed a search warrant in August 2022, agents seized 103 classified documents from a storage room and Trump’s office.
Trump was charged last month with violating the Espionage Act. Trump and Nauta were also charged with conspiring to obstruct justice for failing to turn over the documents.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges and maintains he is the victim of a “weaponized DOJ,” a spokesman said.
