Donald Trump Is Playing Into the DOJ's Hands

The Department of Justice unsealing unseen portions of the warrant to search Donald Trump's Florida home for classified documents suggests that prosecutors were prepared to allow the former president and his team to incriminate themselves, a legal expert has said.

On Wednesday, the DoJ disclosed previously blacked-out parts of the warrant application it submitted ahead of the FBI searching Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in August 2022 for the classified documents they had sought under federal subpoena.

The new information—while not adding too much to the accusations that have already been levied against Trump—lays out the steps leading to the federal investigators searching Mar-a-Lago for the top-secret materials last August. Trump has denied any wrongdoing and has pleaded not guilty to 37 charges.

The indictment states that Walt Nauta, Trump's valet who has pleaded not guilty to allegations he helped obstruct the federal attempt to retrieve the classified documents, was seen in security footage moving boxes of materials in and out of a storage room in the days before federal prosecutors arrived last June under an agreement to recover sensitive records still in Trump's possession.

On June 2, 2022, a day before FBI officials were due to visit Mar-a-Lago to retrieve documents, Nauta was seen "moving twenty-five to thirty boxes, some of which were brown cardboard boxes and others of which were Bankers boxes," back to the storage room, according to a newly unsealed part of the affidavit.

The affidavit notes that between May 24, 2022, and June 1, 2022, Nauta took 64 boxes out of the storage room, but only put around 25 or 30 of them back in.

"The current location of the boxes removed from the storage room but not returned to it is unknown," the affidavit said.

Last June, Trump's legal team wrote a letter to the FBI attesting that all classified materials had been returned following a "diligent search" of Mar-a-Lago.

Hitherto unseen sections of the affidavit state that Trump attorney Evan Corcoran told the government that he had been informed there were no further classified records "in any private office space or other location in Mar-a-Lago" after he handed over 38 classified documents from the storage room, a statement that later turned out to be untrue.

Andrew Lieb, a legal and political analyst, said the newly unsealed parts of the search warrant suggest that the DoJ had "locked Trump and Nauta into a box" prior to executing the warrant.

"We like to think from the movies that the execution of the search warrant is where the evidence is found, but in this case, DoJ knew that Trump and Nauta were previously moving boxes when they executed the warrant and DoJ let Trump's team tell them that they had undertaken a 'diligent search,' knowing it was a coverup," Lieb told Newsweek.

"It's like the DoJ knows how to trigger Trump into acting out and their strategy is to trigger him every time that they have evidence."

Lieb said that Trump is at further risk of damaging his defense the more he openly talks about the criminal investigation.

"Prosecutors know that Trump punches back, as he is known for, and will always compound his legal nightmare," Lieb said. "This guy just needs to stop reacting because every reaction is making his conviction a surer thing."

Corcoran was recently made to further testify to a grand jury as part of the classified documents probe having previously refused to answer some questions while citing the normally highly protected attorney-client privilege.

D.C. District Court Judge Beryl Howell ruled that the privilege could be voided under what is known as the crime-fraud exception, meaning it cannot be invoked if a lawyer and their client are allegedly attempting to cover up or engage in a crime.

On Thursday, Nauta pleaded not guilty to six charges—including conspiracy and making false statements—related to hiding secret documents for Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

A spokesperson for the former president declined to comment when approached by Newsweek.