All posts tagged "Classified"

Special counsel Jack Smith has slapped down a dismissal motion from Donald Trump's body man Walt Nauta in the classified documents case in which both face criminal charges, court records show.

Smith filed a response in Florida federal court contesting Nauta's demand that charges of concealing or withholding documents and taking part in a conspiracy to obstruct justice be dropped.

“Nauta’s challenges to the charges get the law entirely wrong,” Smith writes. “Nauta’s motion should be denied in its entirety, and no hearing is required to address the issues he raises.”...

Before former President Donald Trump defied subpoenas to return highly classified national defense information hoarded at his Mar-a-Lago country club, an attorney warned him that "it's going to be a crime" if he were to do so, ABC News reported on Wednesday.

That case is currently being prosecuted by special counsel Jack Smith in federal court in South Florida, which also includes the former president's body man Walt Nauta as the ex-president's co-defendant.

"Sources said the lawyer, Jennifer Little, told investigators Trump 'absolutely' understood the warning, which came during a pivotal meeting at Mar-a-Lago with Trump and another attorney, Evan Corcoran, who had recently joined Trump's legal team," reported Katherine Faulders, Mike Levine, and Alexander Mallin....

The notorious ex-British spy Christopher Steele -- behind the eponymous "Steele dossier" -- blames former President Donald Trump for causing the disappearance of two sources after critical evidence was declassified, according to a Reuters report citing public court documents released on Tuesday.

In a witness statement Steele called out Trump's decision to declassify his testimony to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation back in 2017 as "one of the most egregious breaches of intelligence rules and protocol by the US government in recent times."

He then said that the move resulted in tragic consequences. ...

Donald Trump is currently footing the bill for the legal representation of one of his co-defendants in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case — and that co-defendant might not actually be aware of legal conflicts of interest, reported The Guardian's Hugo Lowell on Thursday.

Carlos De Oliveira, the Mar-a-Lago property manager indicted in connection with the special counsel’s probe of Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents along with the former president and his body man Walt Nauta, requested to keep attorney John Irving during a federal court hearing, but didn't appear to understand the implications of this, Lowell wrote on X.

"De Oliveira was asked if he understood Irving’s potential conflicts arising from his prior representation of three people the Special Counsel could call as trial witnesses, and he said he would move forward with Irving anyway," said Lowell. "BUT De Oliveira, who did not complete high school and told the judge he could read English better than he could write, struggled to articulate the exact nature of the potential conflicts in his own words though he affirmed repeatedly when the judge walked him thru questions."...

Prosecutors in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case could call Anthony Pratt, an Australian billionaire with a membership at former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, to establish a fact pattern over the former president's theft of classified national defense information, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman argued on CNN Thursday evening.

This comes after new reporting from ABC News that Trump shared U.S. nuclear submarine secrets with Pratt shortly after leaving office.

"Maggie, what more have you learned from your reporting?" asked anchor Anderson Cooper....

Donald Trump's behaviors are part of a life-long pattern with many in his family and it's affecting his actions today, according to the former president's niece, Mary Trump.

Mary Trump, who recently said her uncle is getting nervous and there are "clear signs" in his behavior, wrote on Thursday that her family is known for "failing up." She also contradicts the long-believed notion that Trump himself was a self-made man who achieved a lot in business.

"It bears pointing out that the empire Donald has manage[d] to squander over the last thirty years—the one he is in danger of losing thanks to his having committed massive fraud (allegedly)—belonged to his father. It was never his," she said....