Trump could have been planning to share his classified information with the Saudis: Former DOJ official

Former Justice Department official Mary McCord suggested on MSNBC's "Deadline White House" on Friday that special counsel Jack Smith needs to investigate whether former President Donald Trump intended to show his stash of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago to the Saudi government to grease the wheels of his deal to host golf tournaments backed by the Saudis at his properties.

This came in the middle of discussion about Walt Nauta, Trump's former White House valet who is shaping up to be a key witness in the classified documents investigation.

"I want to pick up on the storage facility," said anchor Nicolle Wallace. "This has been something that we've known was at the center of — I don't know if it's appropriate or accurate to suggest an obstruction prong and a classified documents prong of Mar-a-Lago, but for the purposes of this conversation let's do that today ... the government had information in May and June that all the classified material not only wasn't in the storage room, but that it had been moved. Tell me your sort of translation of what we're seeing, what we already knew from their filings and what this new piece of reporting answers."

"What Jack Smith is doing now is simply trying to fill the gap of what they can't get from Walt Nauta if he's not cooperating," said McCord. "That's because even if he was handing them the keys to the kingdom, they wouldn't want to go into court and bring an indictment based on just one cooperating witness. And particularly if it's somebody who they're actually thinking they might charge or use a charge or the agreement not to charge as an inducement to get his cooperation, because that's something he'll be attacked on for his credibility if he's doing this to save himself, and just one person's word is not going to be good enough for the — the Department is not going to want to rely on just that."

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"The other thing they would want to do is figure out the why, right? Why would he be holding back documents, why would he be obstructing if they are thinking of bringing an obstruction charge," said McCord. "That's where I think one of the things that's interesting about the paragraph you read from the reporting about LIV Golf. Because one of the things we do know is that Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund owns the vast majority of that golf venture, something like 93 percent. We know that it is that sovereign wealth fund is run by the crown prince."

"So this is speculation, but if you are thinking about a motive, right, for President Trump potentially to be holding back documents, not providing documents, there's a number of things you could think are possible," McCord explained. "At worst, he potentially wanted to share classified information with the Saudis. He could have been holding back information as sort of blackmail to make sure that they come through and host golf tournaments at his golf resorts. That is very, very lucrative for the former president. He could be — it could be that he wrote notes on documents that pertain to the Saudis that he doesn't want the federal government to see. It could be that he just does the Donald Trump thing and thinks it's cool to have these documents.

"I mean, there's lots of reasons, and it's really speculative for me to be saying what I just said," McCord added. "But the point is, if you're DOJ, you're looking for the why, because you've got to be able to tell a jury you do bring a case, why. What is the modus operandi, what is the intent, and following the money, following possible places of vulnerability and weakness that might have motivated Trump to do some of the things that it's looking like there may be evidence that he did, that is, have boxes moved, attempt to obstruct justice. That's going to be a focus of the investigation."

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