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Trump’s Retribution Promises and Media Complicity

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I have been critical of NYT’s serial effort — now joined by WaPo — to predict retribution in a second Trump term, without doing any recent reporting on how that represents a continuation of Trump’s first term, not anything new. Rather than assign three reporters (including reporters who played key roles enabling past retribution efforts) to treat this as a hypothetical future endeavor, why not assign one to report on newly disclosed details of how Bill Barr ordered Scott Brady to dig up more evidence against Joe Biden’s son?

The attention on the WaPo, especially, has sucked up attention that might otherwise be focused on an excerpt from Jonathan Karl’s new book. It’s about the same thing — retribution. But not about past retribution, nor future retribution, but the way that Trump is leveraging cultural cues about retribution, starting with the launch of his campaign from Waco, TX on the thirty year anniversary of the raid (connotations that were evident in advance).

Given the excerpt, I’m not entirely sure whether Karl thinks Trump is doing this out of a sense of weakness, or because he knows the cultural connotations retribution invokes will elicit a certain kind of response from his followers.

Karl describes how Trump turned to this theme after being rattled by his first indictment (and elsewhere describes Trump’s fury at Todd Blanche to agreeing to a trial data in the Alvin Bragg case prior to the end of the primaries).

The problem was that the indictment had rattled him. For all his bluster, Trump desperately wanted to stave off an arrest, and he was embarrassed he hadn’t been able to. When it came time to turn himself in, he slipped out of Trump Tower and got into a black SUV.

[snip]

D.A. Bragg and Juan Merchan, the presiding judge, were met by a version of Donald Trump that was much quieter, more somber—more timid—than the man he appeared to be on television and social media. The night before, he had said that Bragg should “INDICT HIMSELF.” But finally given a chance to confront them face‐to‐face, Trump was mostly silent. During the 57‐minute proceeding, Trump said just 10 words—“not guilty,” “yes,” “okay, thank you,” “yes,” “I do,” “yes”—and spoke so quietly that reporters had to strain to hear him.

For the first time in years, Donald Trump was not the most powerful person in the room.

Karl also describes Steve Bannon revelling in the explicit Neo-Confederate iconography of the speech Trump gave at CPAC.

“The sinister forces trying to kill America have done everything they can to stop me, to silence you, and to turn this nation into a socialist dumping ground for criminals, junkies, Marxists, thugs, radicals, and dangerous refugees that no other country wants,” he said. The speech was ominous, but one rhetorical flourish stood out. “In 2016, I declared I am your voice. Today, I add: I am your warrior; I am your justice,” Trump said. “And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.” He repeated the last phrase—“I am your retribution”—and promptly the crowd started chanting: “U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”

When I spoke with Bannon a few days later, he wouldn’t stop touting Trump’s performance, referring to it as his “Come Retribution” speech. What I didn’t realize was that “Come Retribution,” according to some Civil War historians, served as the code words for the Confederate Secret Service’s plot to take hostage—and eventually assassinate—President Abraham Lincoln.

Both can be true, of course. Faced with a kind of vulnerability he has never before faced and willing to burn everything down to find a way out, Trump is all too happy to mobilize far right extremists as his instrument (in his description of the Waco event, Karl describes Trump celebrating January 6).

To the extent that Trump’s campaign logic is retribution, then, the spate of stories — both the NYT one and the WaPo one featuring Trump-whisperers — simply reinforce Trump’s campaign message while downplaying the way Trump has always engaged in retribution, often backed by threats of violence.

Indeed, they help Trump provide assurances that in the future, he’ll find better prosecutors than John Durham, who was every bit as corrupt as the prospective stories predict Trump’s select prosecutors might be in the future, every bit as much about retribution, but who never found evidence that could sustain a conviction. He’ll find better prosecutors, more corrupt ones, Trump needs to tell his mob, because quite honestly, he made these very same promises in 2020 and failed to deliver, though did untold damage in the process.

And those failures weren’t for want of trying or any kind of ethical compunction on his part or the instruments of his retribution.

The reason I think Karl’s descriptive piece is more useful than the predictive pieces (aside from the way the predictive pieces totally whitewash Trump’s past unprecedented focus on retribution) is because he identifies the puzzle at the core of Trump’s success running on retribution: What’s in it for his mob? Why does this focus on retribution work?

“If they can do it to him they can do it to you,” Donald Trump Jr. tweeted. Noticeably absent from Trump’s obsession with his own victimization was any real focus on helping Americans who weren’t under criminal investigation, but his advisers were convinced that the ploy would work. “This week, Trump could lock down the nomination if he played his cards right,” Bannon told me as rumors began to swirl of Bragg’s indictment. “‘They’re crucifying me,’ you know, ‘I’m a martyr.’ All that. You get everybody so riled up that they just say, ‘Fuck it. I hate Trump, but we’ve got to stand up against this.’”

[snip]

“The DOJ and FBI are destroying the lives of so many Great American Patriots, right before our very eyes,” Trump posted on Truth Social the day after four members of the Proud Boys militia were convicted of seditious conspiracy for their role in the storming of the Capitol. “GET SMART AMERICA, THEY ARE COMING AFTER YOU!!!”

But “they” weren’t coming after Trump’s law‐abiding supporters—they were coming after Trump. Decades earlier, the presidential candidate Bill Clinton told voters that he felt their pain. Trump was now doing the reverse, trying to persuade his supporters to feel his pain as if it were their own. [my emphasis]

The answer this question is both obvious, and urgent.

It’s obvious, because Trump really is keying into something that isn’t entirely about extremism. And/or Trump is in many cases the gateway drug to radical extremism, something that has shown up over and over in January 6 cases. People respond to something in Trump and then, because Trump’s networks include large numbers of right wing extremists, their ideology gains traction where they might otherwise not. And then the cultural coding of retribution starts to resonate.

It’s urgent, because whether or not Trump wins election, if he primes his mob to embrace political violence again, January 6 will look like elementary school recess. On January 6, many people were armed, but even the ones who brought guns — and plenty did — kept them holstered. That won’t be true the next time.

It is more urgent to show how Trump’s past obsession with retribution hurt people, from his targets, to American security, to the wives of Republican Congressmen, than it is to report that he’ll do more of the same, only earlier this time. It is more urgent to understand why Trump’s mob buys into his messiah syndrome and puncture its power.

I’m not suggesting we return to a moody contemplation of the Deplorables. Nor am I hoping NYT reverts from its prospective reporting on retribution to its past obsession with Trump supporters in diners.

I’m asking for a focus on the continuity of retribution in Trump’s power — past, present, and future — along with some soul-searching about the media’s cooperation in that retribution dynamic.

Of particular note: the media’s coverage of Trump’s legal woes has only helped him create this dynamic.

Take the coverage of Trump’s testimony in his fraud trial yesterday. The NYT was one of the rare outlets that got into something substantive — that Trump did have a role in the valuations that Judge Engoron has already ruled to be fraudulent — in a headline; and it reported on that substance after six paragraphs describing Trump’s stunts. Most of the rest, however, reported nothing but conflict, virtually all of it staged or baited by Trump. Trump succeeded in entirely flooding out any reporting on his fraud — something that goes to the core of his ability to govern, something that goes to his success at fooling supporters and lazy journalists — by distracting everyone with spectacle, a strategy Rolling Stone reported he would adopt a month ago. Rather than reporting on all the evidence — even presented yesterday, amid the circus stunts — that Trump is actually the guy sticking it to the little guys, not the one vindicating them, most outlets just printed one after another of Trump’s taunts.

And in the process, just like any other staged wrestling match, spectators pick one or another side and root loudly, brainlessly. Even for those rooting for law and order, that’s unhealthy, because it invites hero worship and a false belief that prosecutions are easy and quick. It encourages people to outsource defense of democracy to prosecutors rather than do the hard work of organizing themselves. It invites people to engage in mockery rather than rational assessment of the legal case.

But for those who’ve been convinced by unrelentless propaganda about the Russian investigation — which showed that five top Trump aides lied to cover up Trump’s ties with Russian, for those who bought into Trump’s sustained attack on the legitimacy of democratic elections, for those who’ve been bombarded by non-stop coverage of Hunter Biden’s dick pics, the side they’ll pick is obvious. Adopt Trump’s conflict staging, and you will only ever heighten existing partisan divides.

Trump doesn’t care if a bunch of self-satisfied people mock him as a clown. Indeed, that’s what he wants. Because every time they do so publicly, it reaffirms that he’s the guy on the side of average people, fighting the pencil-headed assholes who frown at the little guy. Plus, if you mock something as serious as a lifetime of defrauding financial institutions as a circus, rather than explain how it allowed Trump to get something he hadn’t earned, it tells everyone that Trump’s adjudged fraud isn’t really serious. In your actions, you confirm the argument he is making.

And all the while, it prevents anyone from talking about how Trump has disavowed all the January 6ers who are facing the consequences of following Trump, claiming he has no role in their crimes. It prevents anyone from talking about why leaving nuclear documents in your bathroom requires spooks to shut down collection programs, leading directly to diminished US influence as war breaks out overseas. It prevents anyone from talking about how all of Trump’s brand has been built off lies claiming he, his net worth, his gaudy penthouse are much larger than they are.

Regular life may be screwing over the little guy (or, under Biden, regular life might have delivered financial gains and a resurgence of organized labor strength that never gets covered). But that’s a different thing than saying that “they” are coming for the little guy.

Yet Trump continues to convince people differently, in large part because the media plays along with Trump’s staged circus.

Why Reality TV Star Donald Trump Is More Trusted than Most News Outlets

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Today, Donald Trump is attending the first day of the fraud trial that he already substantially lost.

Depending on who you believe, he is either attending because he’s using his attendance to delay a deposition in his own lawsuit against Michael Cohen (who will also be a key witness in this fraud trial).

He cited this as his excuse for skipping out on 2 deposition days in his federal case against ex-lawyer Michael Cohen.

If he didn’t show up, he’d be in contempt of court.

Or, he’s using it as a way to affect the outcome — the outcome that was already substantially determined by Judge Engoron’s ruling last week, a ruling addressed in passing, without explaining how he can affect something that has already occurred.

For Mr. Trump, his attendance at trial is far more personal than political, according to a person familiar with his thinking. The former president is enraged by the fraud charges and furious with both the judge and the attorney general. And Mr. Trump, who is a control enthusiast, believes that trials have gone poorly for him when he hasn’t been present, and he hopes to affect the outcome this time, according to the person.

In his courthouse remarks, Mr. Trump lashed out at the judge’s earlier fraud ruling on his property valuations. “I didn’t even put in my best asset, which is the brand,” he said.

I think Trump is attending to spin a judgment that has already been issued as, instead, an outcome he predicted.

Today.

Days after the ruling.

Here’s how it works. On the way into the trial, Reality TV Star Donald Trump made a public statement in which he told his cult followers that the judge that the judge was rogue and the prosecutor was racist. He renewed his claim that Judge Engoron erred by using Palm Beach’s valuation (the one they made in 2011, not in 2021) rather than his boast that Mar-a-Lago is worth a billion dollars.

Few outlets reported that 77-year old Reality TV Star Donald Trump had slurred his words.

No one asked why his spouse hadn’t accompanied him to this trial. (Though this time, one of his co-defendant sons accompanied him to the courthouse.)

Few outlets reported Tish James’ comments about how no one is above the law.

Many outlets were so busy reporting on Reality TV Star Donald Trump’s statements that they didn’t explain that Trump’s Parking Garage Lawyer, Alina Habba, didn’t even try to push for a jury trial, something Judge Engoron confirmed as the trial started.

At least some of the outlets that reported Chris Kise’s arguments about valuation did not explain that those issues were already decided, in a ruling last week.

Most outlets reported that Reality TV Star Donald Trump glared at The Black Woman Prosecutor on his way out for lunch. Some also reported that she laughed that off.

On the way back in the courthouse, Reality TV Star Donald Trump made even more incendiary comments about the judge who already did and will decide his fate. Reality TV Star Donald Trump told his followers that the judge presiding over a trial that might lead him to lose his iconic Trump Tower should be prosecuted and was guilty of election interference.

Many observers clucked that such a stunt would lead the judge — the one who already ruled against Trump — to rule against him.

Trump is going to lose this trial. Know how I know? Judge Engoron already ruled against him!

But most of Trump’s followers don’t know that. Most of Trump’s followers believe that Chris Kise’s comments about valuation were still at issue. Most cult members will see Trump’s comments today — it won’t be hard, because every outlet is carrying them — and remember that before the trial, Trump “predicted” that The Corrupt Judge and The Black Woman Prosecutor would gang up on him.

Reality TV Show Actor Donald Trump used his presence at the trial to create a reality in which he will have correctly predicted a loss that was baked in last week. Because he “predicted” such an outcome, his millions of cult followers will not only treat him as more trustworthy than the journalists playing some role in Trump’s Reality TV Show, cluck-clucking about his attacks on justice without focusing on the fraud and the more fraud and the already adjudged fraud.

Not only will Reality TV Show Actor Donald Trump have “predicted” the outcome, leading his followers to renew their faith in his reliability, but they will implicitly trust his explanation: that he lost the trial not because he is, and has always been, a fraud, but instead because Corrupt Judges and Black Prosecutors continue to gang up on him.

And in the process, Reality TV Show Actor Donald Trump will have continued the big con, the very same fraud of which he has already been adjuged. He will have once again distracted from his own fantasy self-worth and instead led people to report on his golden brand.

When you let Reality TV Show Actor Donald Trump to set the stage, as journalists, you are yet more actors in his Reality TV creation.

It’s not that journalists are bad or biased or corrupt (though some of their editors are). It’s just that Trump already cast them in a role and they’re playing it to a T.

Donald Trump’s Fantasy Self Worth

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Yesterday, Judge Arthur Engoron ruled that Trump and his two sons have engaged in fraud since July 13, 2014, overstating the value of Trump properties by at least $812 million dollars and possibly as much as $2.2 billion.

The core of the scathing ruling — which imposed sanctions on his attorneys and ordered the dissolution of some of the properties — describes the fantasy world of Trump’s business valuations.

Exacerbating defendants’ obstreperous conduct is their continued reliance on bogus arguments, in papers and oral arguments. In defendants’ world: rent regulated apartments are worth the same as unregulated apartments; restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land; restrictions can evaporate into thin air; a disclaimer by one party casting responsibility on another party exonerates the other party’s lies; the Attorney General of the State of New York does not have capacity to sue (never mind all those cases where the Attorney General has sued successfully) under a statute expressly designed to provide that right; all illegal acts are untimely if they stem from one untimely act; and square foot subjective.

That is a fantasy world, not the real world.

Engoran went one by one, describing the properties that Tish James had demonstrated Trump Organization had overvalued:

He described how Trump (and a purported expert Trump brought in to pitch Mar-a-Lago’s value) repeatedly defied objective value. There is no such thing as “objective” value; square footage is a subjective process (though Chris Kise did admit at oral arguments that it is actually an objective number); the value of MAL is based on a realtor’s “dream” of “anyone from Elon Musk to Bill Gates” to “Kings, emperors, heads of state” who might overpay to own Trump’s beach resort.

In response to the ruling, both failsons rushed to Twitter to complain that Judge Engoran used the Palm Beach assessment for Mar-a-Lago, which of course incorporates the promises not to turn the property into a residence, rather than the dream-casting of their expert.

In doing so, Eric may have confessed to tax fraud, given that Palm Beach has been taxing Mar-a-Lago as a as a social club rather than a private residence.

That’s sort of the point: When the Trump men’s fantasies butt up against objective reality, they simply claim they’ll break their contracts, maybe even the law, to find a way to fluff up their own value to match their delusions.

Which brings us to one of the most telling passages in Engoron’s ruling. He quotes Trump as saying that market value of all this doesn’t matter because the Saudis will happily pay whatever he demands.

The defenses Donald Trump attempts to articulate in his sworn deposition are wholly without basis in law or fact. He claims that if the values of the property have gone up in the years since the SFCs were submitted, then the numbers were not inflated at that time (i.e.; “but you take the 2014 statement, if something is much more valuable now — or, I guess, we’ll have to pick a date which was a little short of now. But if something is much more valuable now, then the number that I have down here is a. low number”) [citation omitted] He also seems to imply that the numbers cannot be inflated because he could find a “buyer from Saudi Arabia” to pay any price he suggests.10 [citation omitted]

10 This statement may suggest influence buying more than savvy investing.

This is their out. This is the out that Jared Kushner already pursued. This may be the underlying basis for Trump’s LIV golf tournament deal.

Trump confessed, in a sworn deposition, that if he can’t make objective reality match his own delusions, he’s sure the Saudis will bail him out.

An interesting service the Saudis are offering.

Where Alina Habba Didn’t Personally Search

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Given the news that Alina Habba appeared before the grand jury investigating Trump’s stolen documents, I wanted to go back to the declaration she submitted in the NY State investigation pertaining to diligent searches for documents in that investigation back in May 2022.

Politico reported on it before the public release about details of the stolen classified documents, and as such was taken as a claim that Habba conducted a search of the locations where documents were known to have been stored.

But it wasn’t.

Obviously, that’s true because (as Habba made a big deal of pointing out just after the original Politico report) the May 2022 searches were just for documents responsive to Tish James’ subpoena focused on the valuation of various properties, not for classified records.

But that’s also true because Habba did not search all the locations known to have stored Trump’s stolen documents.

The certifications involved include a nested certification, on Trump’s behalf, to the diligence of the search. Trump personally signed an affidavit, but he relied on the diligence of searches done by others, including the physical searches of three properties by lawyers.

5. Nevertheless, in an abundance of caution and in accordance with the Order, I authorized the additional, follow-up searches to be performed on my private residences:

a. On May 4, 2022, I authorized my attorney, Alina Habba, to search my private residence and personal office located at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey for any and all documents responsive to the Subpoena.

b. On May 5, 2022, I authorized Alina Habba to search my private residence and personal office located at The Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida for any and all documents responsive to the Subpoena.

c. On May 5, 2022, I authorized Alan Garten, General Counsel for the Trump Organization, to search my private apartment located in Trump Tower in New York, New York for any and all documents responsive to the Subpoena

[snip]

It is my understanding that searches of the above-listed locations have been performed by my attorneys, the Trump Organization Legal Department, the Trump Organization IT Department, and others.

Habba was not involved in the searches of business locations in Trump Tower or Trump’s residence there. Alan Garten was.

Garten was similarly responsible for compliance with subpoenas in conjunction with the various Russian investigations, and there are what SSCI called, “known deficiencies in the Trump Organization’s document responses,” including the email between Michael Cohen and Dmitri Peskov’s assistant, among others.

Garten did not submit a declaration in this package. Instead, Habba vouched for the diligence of Garten’s search.

f. On May 5, 2022, I coordinated and communicated with Alan Garten via telephone with regard to his search of Respondent’s private residence in Trump Tower including all desks, drawers, file cabinets, and similar locations likely to house files or documents. The search did not identify any documents responsive to the Subpoena.

So in this filing, Trump relied on the searches done by Habba and Garten, but Garten relied on Habba to attest to the diligence of the search.

And no one searched the storage facility in Florida at which some of Trump’s White House papers were stored, where two classified documents were discovered in follow-up searches by Trump’s lawyers in November.

But even the two properties Habba did search include gaps.

b. On May 4, 2022, I diligently searched each and every room of Respondent’s private residence located at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster, including all desks, drawers, nightstands, dressers, closets, etc. I was unable to locate any documents responsive to the Subpoena that have not already been produced to the OAG by the Trump Organization.

c. On May 4, 2022, I diligently searched Respondent’s personal office located at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster, including all desks, drawers, file cabinets, etc. I was unable to locate any documents responsive to the Subpoena that have not already been produced to the OAG by the Trump Organization.

d. On May 5, 2022, I diligently searched each and every room of Respondent’s private residence located at Mar-a-Lago, including all desks, drawers, nightstands, dressers, closets, etc. I was unable to locate any documents responsive to the Subpoena that have not already been produced to the OAG by the Trump Organization.

e. On May 5, 2022, I diligently searched Respondent’s personal office located at Mara-Lago, including all desks, drawers, file cabinets, etc. I was unable to locate any documents responsive to the Subpoena that have not already been produced to the OAG by the Trump Organization.

It’s hard to see how a one day search of these facilities, May 4 at Bedminster and then May 5 at Mar-a-Lago, could be that thorough, in any case.

But on May 5, when Habba was searching MAL, the bulk of the documents that were later seized were probably still in the storage closet from which they were moved in advance of Evan Corcoran’s search leading up to June 3. That’s neither the residence nor Trump’s office.

While there were likely classified documents in the drawers she searched at the time she searched them — a Secret document attached to Roger Stone clemency paperwork, and a Secret and a Confidential document attached to post-Administration messages from others — it’s not clear where the leatherbound box that held the most sensitive documents would have been stored in May 2022 (which was ultimately found in the office). And it’s still not clear where the classified documents in a box with Trump’s White House schedules was when the FBI conducted its search in August.

But there’s no way Habba would have found most documents, because most documents were still in that storage room.

They are understood to have been moved out of the storage room into the residence after the May 11 subpoena, days after Habba’s search.

Habba’s testimony would have been useful for showing that when asked to do a diligent search, Trump specifically hid from her one of the locations where he stored documents. She also would have added testimony about the absence of boxes in the residence when she searched it.

Judge Aileen Cannon Treated a Public Letter about Trump’s Health as More Sensitive than America’s National Security

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As I have shown, had Judge Aileen Cannon left well enough alone, the government would have handed all Category B documents identified by the filter team back to Trump on September 1. Instead, she deliberately inflicted what she herself deemed to be further harm on Trump to justify intervening in the search of Trump’s beach resort.

And now she may have caused even more harm. That’s because, by means that are not yet clear (but are likely due to a fuck-up by one of Cannon’s own staffers), the inventories from both Category A (government documents that deal with a legal issue) and Category B (more personal documents) were briefly posted on the docket. (h/t Zoe Tillman, who snagged a copy)

Those inventories not only show Cannon’s claims of injury to Trump were even more hackish than I imagined. But it creates the possibility that DOJ’s filter team will attempt to retain some of the documents included in Category B, notably records pertaining to the Georgia fraud attempts and January 6, they otherwise wouldn’t have.

Start with the hackishness. The harm that Cannon sustained to justify intervening consisted of preventing DOJ from returning, “medical documents, correspondence related to taxes, and accounting information” to Trump, “depriv[ing Trump]of potentially significant personal documents.” Cannon made DOJ withhold such documents from Trump for a least two additional weeks and then used it to argue that Trump had a personal interest in what DOJ claims are mostly government documents and press clippings.

The single solitary medical document pertaining to Trump (there’s a Blue Cross explanation of benefits that appears to pertain to someone else) is this letter from Trump’s then-personal physician released during the 2016 Presidential campaign.

Not only was it publicly released over six years ago, but details of medicines left off the report and Trump’s role in dictating an earlier version of the letter were widely reported in 2017.

Aileen Cannon held up a national security investigation into highly sensitive documents stored insecurely at a beach resort targeted by foreign intelligence services, in part, because the FBI seized a public letter than had been released as part of a political campaign six years ago.

She personally halted efforts to keep the United States safe, in part, to prevent leaks of a document that Trump released himself six years ago.

But that’s not all she did.

There are documents in both Category A and Category B that may be responsive to subpoenas from the January 6, the DOJ investigation, and Fani Willis’ Georgia investigation.

The December 31, 2020 email from Kurt Hilbert pertaining to Fulton County lawsuits is likely the one investigators turned over to the filter team on September 26 (which Trump’s lawyers claim is privileged).

For some unknown reason (probably that it was sent to the White House, which DOJ considers a waiver of privilege), DOJ put it in Category A.

There are several uninteresting Georgia-related documents included among Category B documents — the Civil Complaint in Trump v. Kemp, retainer agreements pertaining to various Fulton County lawsuits, a retention agreement with Veen, O’Neill, Hartshorn, and Levin, along with another folder with retention agreements pertaining to Fulton County. But this file, including a letter to Kurt Hilbert with a post-it note from Cleta Mitchell, might be more interesting.

There’s also a document pertaining to Joe DiGenova regarding appointing a Special Counsel (as well as might be an effort to get Pat Cipollone to complain about Saturday Night Live’s taunts of Trump).

The DiGenova document might pertain to any number of topics, but like Cleta Mitchell, he has been named in DOJ subpoenas on election fraud.

Similarly, there are documents that might be responsive to and of interest to Tish James in her investigation of Trump’s fraud. Those include:

  • 5 copies of the same one-page letter from Morgan Lewis about taxes
  • A document about a restrictive covenant agreement
  • A confidential settlement between the PGA and Trump Golf
  • Several IRS Form 872s, including one in a folder marked NYC 8/10 (the date of Trump’s deposition with Tish James)
  • An IRS Form 2858 with Molly’s name on it (almost certainly Molly Michael)
  • A signed tax return disclosure consent form

The desk drawer also includes details of Alina Habba’s retention agreements and payments, which she would have found when she searched the drawers to ensure there were not tax documents in there.

The tax documents are likely uninteresting. Some (especially the Hilbert documents) may already be in investigators hands. But the point remains: By preventing DOJ from turning over these Category B documents to Trump on September 1 like they requested permission to do, Cannon has now given DOJ an opportunity to argue these document are not privileged, possibly even that they’re responsive to various subpoenas that might be crime-fraud excepted.

With the exception of the Hilbert emails to the White House, DOJ may still return these — fighting over them may be more trouble than it’s worth. But because this inventory got released, it will now be clear what Trump’s lawyers are attempting to hide. It may even give James or Willis opportunity to subpoena the documents anew.

And it will be clear that Aileen Cannon endangered the United States, in part, based off a claim that a medical record that Trump himself released six years ago is more important than some of the government’s most sensitive documents.

As Tillman noted in her piece on the inventory, there are also details of some of the clemency packages Trump reviews. Those include pardons for Rod Blagojevich, what are probably two Border Patrol agents convicted for shooting a drug smuggler, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, and Michael Behanna, a soldier courtmartialed for killing an Iraqi prisoner, as well as the commutation of Ted Suhl. There’s also one for an “RN” that might be Ronen Nahamani, whose clemency a bipartisan group of politicians supported, including Matt Gaetz. The inclusion of all these clemency packages makes it more likely that Roger Stone’s was among them — though by description, Stone’s pardon was in another drawer of a desk in Trump’s office.

One of the other main categories of Category A documents are letters to NARA, something likely covered by the part of the warrant authorizing the seizure of communications about classified records.

Christina Bobb, Custodian of Records and Coup Conspirator

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According to Donald Trump’s whack-ass filing the other day, he personally has yet to receive a subpoena in the investigation of his  suspected theft of classified documents and obstruction of one or more investigations by hiding, ripping, or flushing documents. Instead, his hospitality company and Christina Bobb have.

DOJ sent the June 22 subpoena for surveillance footage at Mar-a-Lago to the Custodian of Records at the Trump Organization.

On June 22, 2022, the Government sent a subpoena to the Custodian of Records for the Trump Organization seeking footage from surveillance cameras at Mar-a-Lago. At President Trump’s direction, service of that subpoena was voluntarily accepted, and responsive video footage was provided to the Government.

The WaPo explained that it was sent to Trump Organization, not Trump, because that’s who actually owns Mar-a-Lago.

By the way, that means that Trump Organization could have, but thus far has not, intervened in the August 8 search as well as Donald. Indeed, that may have been what Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, who has read the search warrant affidavit, was alluding to when he memorialized his order asking DOJ to provide more justification for its review. He noted that neither Trump nor any other “purported owner” of Mar-a-Lago had intervened.

Neither Former President Trump nor anyone else purporting to be the owner of the Premises has filed a pleading taking a position on the Intervenors’ Motions to Unseal.

In fact, when Trump intervened in the Michael Cohen search in 2018 — and did so after just four days — he did so in the persons of Trump Organization lawyer Alan Futerfas and Futerfas’ partner Ellen Resnick. Having Trump Organization ask for a Temporary Restraining Order would have been another way to intervene in more timely and competent way than Trump has done so far — but Trump Organization has been rather distracted preparing for depositions in Tish James’ investigation and the October trial testimony of their former CFO in a New York City trial.

In any case, it is totally normal for a grand jury to subpoena the “Custodian of Records” of a corporation from which it wants records. In the case of the surveillance video (and presumably a renewed subpoena after the search), that just happened to place the legal obligation to respond on an entity that has a whole heap of other legal problems right now.

In Trump’s whack filing, though, the hero of our story Donald J. Trump magnanimously instructed Trump Organization to accept service and provide the video (it appears that Eric or the failson would have been the ones legally to give that order), otherwise known as “complying with a subpoena.”

It’s the other subpoena I find more interesting.

On May 11, 2022, Movant voluntarily accepted service of a grand jury subpoena addressed to the custodian of records for the Office of Donald J. Trump, seeking documents bearing any classification markings. President Trump determined that a search for documents bearing classification markings should be conducted — even if the marked documents had been declassified — and his staff conducted a diligent search of the boxes that had been moved from the White House to Florida. On June 2, 2022, President Trump, through counsel, invited the FBI to come to Mar-a-Lago to retrieve responsive documents. [italics Trump’s, bold mine]

There’s a lot going on in this passage. Whereas the earlier passage described the government sending the subpoena, here Trump’s team only describes that service for it was accepted, “voluntarily,” it notes in italics, which is not a thing.

It’s a subpoena, you don’t get a choice.

The passage dates that acceptance to May 11 — the day after, we now know, that the Acting Archivist Debra Steidel Wall had informed Evan Corcoran, acting as Trump’s attorney, that she would not respect Trump’s “protective assertion of executive privilege.” The dates are almost certainly related, but we can’t be sure how, because we can’t be sure when DOJ subpoenaed Trump for the rest of the classified documents he was hoarding.

More interesting, to me, is the way this passage introduces a second role (and third) it will rely on heavily to describe what must be a core focus of the obstruction investigation, that Custodian of Records of the Office of Donald J. Trump. The Custodian of Records accepted the subpoena (and so would be on the legal hook for it), “his staff conducted a diligent search,” and then his counsel — Corcoran — “invited” Jay Bratt to come get the additional classified documents that would constitute proof Trump had violated the Espionage Act. Trump doesn’t reveal who did the search (though other reports have said Corcoran did it). But as presented, this process implicated three different roles, at least one role performed by a guy who signed this very whack filing that works so hard to obscure all this.

All that is set-up for the meeting on June 3, which will carry a great deal of legal import going forward, not least in an inevitable Fourth Amendment suppression motion. Here’s the tale the whack filing, written in part by Evan Corcoran, tells:

The next day, on June 3, 2022, Jay Bratt, Chief of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section in the DOJ’s National Security Division, came to Mar-a-Lago, accompanied by three FBI agents. President Trump greeted them in the dining room at Mar-a-Lago. There were two other attendees: the person designated as the custodian of records for the Office of Donald J. Trump, and counsel for President Trump. Before leaving the group, President Trump’s last words to Mr. Bratt and the FBI agents were as follows: “Whatever you need, just let us know.”

Responsive documents were provided to the FBI agents. Mr. Bratt asked to inspect a storage room. Counsel for President Trump advised the group that President Trump had authorized him to take the group to that room. The group proceeded to the storage room, escorted by two Secret Service agents. The storage room contained boxes, many containing the clothing and personal items of President Trump and the First Lady. When their inspection was completed, the group left the area.

Once back in the dining room, one of the FBI agents said, “Thank you. You did not need to show us the storage room, but we appreciate it. Now it all makes sense.” Counsel for President Trump then closed the interaction and advised the Government officials that they should contact him with any further needs on the matter.

This passage is designed to portray Trump’s response as completely cooperative, which is set up for a claim the warrant was not necessary. As such, it describes an FBI comment undoubtedly designed, legally, to reiterate that a consensual search — of the storage room — was indeed consensual, as if it means something else, that the FBI had had all its questions answered. But when Trump eventually receives the affidavit that relies on this FBI agent’s first-hand observations during a consensual search to show probable cause for a warrant to come back and search the storage room further, Trump will have ceded the consensual nature of it and therefore his ability to suppress the August 8 search.

Evan Corcoran will one day be underbussed for agreeing (and in this filing, attesting) to this consensual search; given the way he’s portrayed in this WaPo story, the underbussing may have already begun. But for now, it is the stated version Trump wants to tell.

What I’m interested in, though, is that according to this version — a version that makes absolutely no mention of the declaration Jay Bratt required Trump’s team provide after that consensual search of the storage room — the roles that Corcoran and Christina Bobb played were different, and different in a way that holds legal weight. They don’t name names, but because Corcoran is known to have done the things attributed to “counsel” in this whack filing, he must be the counsel in the meeting and Bobb, by process of elimination, was the Custodian of Records. So Bobb was the person on the hook for the subpoena response.

As a reminder, here’s the most complete description of the declaration that Corcoran neglected to mention in the whack filing, from an NYT article that studiously avoids mentioning that obstruction is one of the crimes under investigation.

Mr. Bratt and the agents who joined him were given a sheaf of classified material, according to two people familiar with the meeting. Mr. Corcoran then drafted a statement, which Ms. Bobb, who is said to be the custodian of the documents, signed. It asserted that, to the best of her knowledge, all classified material that was there had been returned, according to two people familiar with the statement.

Bobb, performing the role as the Custodian of Records and so the person on the legal hook for the search, is the one who signed the declaration, based off a search that unnamed Trump “staff” members — described as a third role separate from that of Custodian of Records Christina Bobb and counsel Evan Corcoran — conducted.

Who knows whether Bobb really played the legal function of Custodian of Records at the Office of Donald J. Trump? I’ll come back to that in a bit.

Whatever Bobb really is, though, three pages later, Trump’s Custodian of Records gets a dizzying demotion to one of “three attorneys in the general area” who showed up to observe the search. That demotion may serve the legal function of justifying a claim, made another 11 pages later, that the search warrant receipts Bobb signed do not meet the standards required by Rule 41.

Among other actions taken after being notified of this unprecedented event, counsel for President Trump contacted three attorneys in the general area who agreed to go to Mar-a-Lago. Once they arrived, they requested the ability to enter the mansion in order to observe what the FBI agents were doing, which the Government declined to permit.

After approximately nine hours, the FBI concluded its search. An FBI agent provided one of the attorneys who had been waiting outside for nearly the full nine hours with a copy of the Search Warrant. TheFBI also provided a three-page Receipt for Property. Receipt for Property

[Case 9:22-mj-08332-BER, ECF 17 at 5-7 of 7]. That list provided almost no information that would allow a reader to understand what was seized or the precise location of the items.

[snip]

In addition, Movant requests that this Court direct the United States to prepare and provide a specific and detailed Receipt for Property. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 41(f). The “Receipt For Property” provided to Movant on August 8, 2022 is so vague and lacking in specificity that the reader does not know what was seized from Movant’s home.

[snip]

Movant submits the current Receipt for Property is legally deficient. Accordingly, the Government should be required to provide a more detailed and informative Receipt For Property, which states exactly what was seized, and where it was located when seized. In addition, Movant requests that the Court provide him with a copy of the inventory. This, along with inspection of the full Affidavit, is the only way to ensure the President can properly evaluate and avail himself of the important protections of Rule 41. [my emphasis]

Rolling Stone has a piece explaining that this whack filing is not actually the significant Fourth Amendment filing we were promised. That one, a bid to demand that Trump get these files back, is still coming.

[T]he former president’s legal team appears to be working to retrieve at least some of the papers seized during the Aug. 8 federal search. In recent days, the Trump team — led by former federal prosecutor Evan Corcoran — has been quietly prepping additional legal arguments and strategies to try to pry back material that the feds removed from the ex-president’s Florida abode and club, the sources say. Those measures include drafting a so-called “Rule 41(g) motion,” which allows  “a person aggrieved by an unlawful search and seizure of property” to “move for the property’s return,” according to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.

This would be a follow-up measure to the lawsuit, filed Monday by Trump and his attorneys, calling for the appointment of a special master to review the Mar-a-Lago materials for potentially privileged materials. It is unclear when the ex-president’s lawyers plan to file a subsequent motion, which people close to Trump expect to be more narrowly tailored than what the former president apparently wants.

But this whack filing is meant to lay the groundwork for the future promised significant Fourth Amendment whack filing.

And the success of both depends on a claim that poor Christina Bobb, who in her role as the Custodian of Records is either a witness or suspect in the obstruction side of this investigation, was on the day of the search just a pretty little lawyer who happened to be walking her dog in the neighborhood, and who asked the nice FBI agents to let her watch the search but wasn’t allowed to, which is why she signed off on the receipt without asking for more details on the front end. This entire scheme will fail when the FBI points out that a suspected co-conspirator didn’t do the due diligence Trump is now claiming (falsely) is legally required according to the standards of Rule 41.

It would almost certainly fail anyway, but it will especially fail when DOJ points out that Bobb is not just some lady walking her dog in the neighborhood, but played the role of the Custodian of Records, and so had the competence to demand a more complete receipt on the day of the search, but did not. The Office of Donald J. Trump has effectively already waived the issue of the receipts.

But consider the import of the claim that Christina Bobb functioned at the Custodian of Records for the Office of Donald J. Trump, particularly given Paul Sperry’s claim (h/t Ron Filipkowski) that Trump withheld these documents because he knew that if he turned them over, the Archives would in turn provide them to the January 6 Committee (and now, DOJ’s January 6 investigation).

Christina Bobb is not only not just a lady walking her dog in the neighborhood of Mar-a-Lago, she also played a key role in the coup attempt.

She was the first author of the draft Executive Order attempting to seize the voting machines.

That document is nearly identical to a draft executive order the National Archives has shared with the Jan. 6 committee, and that POLITICO published last month. Metadata on the document says it was created by a user named Christina Bobb, and later updated by an unnamed person. A One America News anchor by that name was involved in Giuliani’s work for Trump, and previously worked in the Department of Homeland Security during the Trump administration.

The Washington Post reported that Bobb was on at least one conference call about setting up alternate slates of electors for the Jan. 6 certification vote, and that she was at the Willard hotel “command center” that Trump’s allies used as a home base to coordinate efforts to overturn the election. The emails did not cast light on Bobb’s ties to the draft executive order beyond her name’s appearance in the metadata, and she did not respond to requests for comment.

And as Seth Abramson first confirmed, after leaving the Cannon Office Building at 1PM on January 6, Bobb spent the rest of the day in the Willard right alongside Rudy.

While the Archives spent a year trying to get Trump to return identified documents, some reports say things came to a head in December.

WaPo reports that Trump personally oversaw the packing of boxes to be returned to the Archives, and they were retrieved on January 17.

What followed was a tortured standoff among Trump; some of his own advisers, who urged the return of documents; and the bureaucrats charged by the law with maintaining and protecting presidential records. Trump only agreed to return some of the documents after a National Archives official asked a Trump adviser for help, saying they may have to soon refer the matter to Congress or the Justice Department.

Nearly a year later, on Jan. 17, 2022, Trump returned 15 boxes of newspaper clips, presidential briefing papers, handwritten notes and assorted mementos to the National Archives. That was supposed to settle the issue.

[snip]

It could not be determined who was involved with packing the boxes at Mar-a-Lago or why some White House documents were not sent to the Archives, though people familiar with the episode said Trump oversaw the process himself — and did so with great secrecy, declining to show some items even to top aides. Philbin and another adviser who was contacted by the Archives in April have told others that they had not been involved with the process and were surprised by the discovery of classified records.

What’s clear is that effort to pack up boxes, an effort Trump personally oversaw, was happening during the same period when Trump was trying to prevent the Archives from handing over records to the January 6 Committee.

October 18, 2021: Trump sues to prevent the Archives from complying with January 6 Committee subpoena.

November 10, 2021: Judge Tanya Chutkan denies Trump’s motion for an injunction against NARA. (While it wouldn’t appear in the affidavit, in recent days Paul Sperry has claimed that Trump withheld documents to prevent NARA from turning them over to the January 6 Committee.)

December 9, 2021: DC Circuit upholds Judge Chutkan’s decision releasing Trump records to the January 6 Committee.

On January 17, 2022, NARA retrieved 15 boxes of Records from 1100 S. Ocean Blvd, Palm Beach, FL.

January 19, 2022: SCOTUS upholds Chutkan’s decision.

Any tampering with already packed boxes may have happened after the DC Circuit ruled in favor of the Committee, but in any case, in courts in DC, such tampering happened during a period when Trump was legally fighting to hide records that would implicate him … and Christina Bobb.

I’m still not convinced that the January 6 investigation(s) are the primary thing that Trump was trying to retain, though I think there’s a decent chance they’re included among the investigation(s) that Trump is suspected of obstructing by hiding, ripping, and flushing documents.

But to the extent that Trump was attempting to obstruct parallel investigations of his efforts to steal the 2020 election, Bobb’s role as both a co-conspirator in the coup plan and as Custodian of Records would raise additional concerns for the FBI.