- The DOJ is investigating Donald Trump’s handling of classified White House documents.
- Sources told WaPo that there may be evidence of possible obstruction.
- Workers helped move boxes of documents the day before the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago, per WaPo.
Donald Trump and his team may have prepared to move sensitive White House documents months before the FBI raided the Mar-a-Lago resort last August, according to a report from The Washington Post.
Sources familiar with the Justice Department’s investigation alleged to The Post that the former president’s aides performed a “dress rehearsal” for moving the documents even before the DOJ shared a grand jury subpoena requesting all classified records back in May.
FBI agents seized thousands of government documents, some of them marked confidential, from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort last August. The DOJ’s probe entered a new phase in March after Special Counsel Jack Smith subpoenaed dozens of Mar-a-Lago staffers, but movement in the investigation has been quiet in recent weeks. ABC News reported that Smith may be wrapping up the investigation as he decides whether to charge the former president.
Some of the charges could include wrongful possession of government documents and obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve the material.
On top of the aides’ alleged preparation for moving sensitive documents, two of Trump’s employees moved boxes of documents a day before FBI agents and a prosecutor met with Trump’s lawyer in Mar-a-Lago last June to retrieve any material, the sources told The Post.
One of the employees was a maintenance worker at the resort who offered to help a Trump aide, Walt Nauta, with moving the boxes, a source familiar with the matter told The New York Times. The maintenance worker did not know the content of the boxes, the source said.
Nauta was caught on security camera moving boxes out of a storage room in Mar-a-Lago before and after the Justice Department issued the May subpoena, The Times previously reported.
Federal prosecutors also have evidence that Trump kept classified documents out in the open in his office at Mar-a-Lago and sometimes showed them to other people, sources told The Post.
Trump’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He has previously denied any wrongdoing regarding his handling of classified documents.