Jack Smith may be trying to prove Trump tampered with Mar-a-Lago security footage: legal expert
May 03, 2023
According to new reporting from CNN, special counsel Jack Smith is now investigating the Trump Organization's handling of security footage from former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, as part of the criminal probe into troves of highly classified documents that were found illegally being stored on the premises — and that longtime Trump security aide Matthew Calamari and his son are a key focus.
Speaking to CNN's Pamela Brown, NYU professor Ryan Goodman argued this is a key indication Smith thinks the footage Trump's legal team handed over previously may have been doctored or otherwise interfered with.
"The special counsel is looking at the handling of surveillance footage that was turned over under subpoena," said Brown. "How significant is this development."
"It's highly significant if the special counsel has reason to think that the surveillance video was tampered with," said Goodman. "It's very significant in two respects. One, this is a case about obstruction, which would be 'obstruction on steroids' if people tampered with the surveillance that the Department of Justice specifically subpoenaed in order to find out what had happened to the classified documents. And the second is that it would be a very serious aggravating factor pointing the Justice Department to indictment under the Espionage Act if, indeed, it included this kind of level of obstruction, of any tampering with the video surveillance. And would also mean that more than one person was involved. That's another aggravating factor that the Department of Justice would have to take into account."
"We played that sound of Trump telling Sean Hannity a few weeks ago, quote, 'I gave them tapes of storage areas, I wasn't holding anything back,'" said Brown. "CNN has reported that the security camera footage that was turned over showed a Mar-a-Lago staff member moving boxes from a storage room with a Trump aide ... what do you think, do you think there's more footage that Trump doesn't want out there."
"That's an open question," said Goodman. "The footage they provided was only of a certain date range. They only keep surveillance video footage for a specific period of time. It also sounds as though the special counsel wants to hear about how people like Walter, who's caught on the video, and the Calamaris may have been discussing it. Moving the boxes out after they received the subpoena and the direction to keep the boxes in the storage room, really important for the Justice Department to know about those conversations entail."
Watch the segment below or at this link.
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