🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
Donald Trump's arraignment over his alleged mishandling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago is scheduled for Tuesday in Miami. The former president and his attorney confirming multiple charges, including obstruction of justice, destruction or falsification of records, conspiracy and false statements.
Trump has denied all wrongdoing, calling the matter a "hoax" in a statement on his Truth social site. People, including staff at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort where the FBI seized more than 100 classified and top secret documents in August 2022, are said to have been subpoenaed to testify in front of the grand jury.
Amid the news of the indictment, several claims began circulating on social media that Trump had a role in altering video footage of classified documents being handled at his resort in Florida.
The Claim
A tweet by lawyer and political commentator Tristan Snell, posted June 9, 2023, viewed 761,000 times, said that "Trump doctored" security cam footage related to the handling of classified documents.
Another tweet by fellow commentator Lindy Li, posted on June 6, 2023, viewed 190,600 times, said: "Trump flooded and destroyed the surveillance equipment at Mar-a-Lago
"Messed with the security footage & submitted a doctored version to the Justice Department."
The Facts
The claims are based on reports published this year regarding Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigations. Smith's probes have focused on the president's role in the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot and his alleged mishandling of classified information.
In May 2023, The New York Times reported how prosecutors working for Smith had sought to determine whether Trump and some of his aides "sought to interfere with the government's attempt to obtain security camera footage from Mar-a-Lago."
The report, based on information from "people familiar with the matter," claimed that prosecutors had spoken with a number of lower-level staff at the Mar-a-Lago resort, some of whom it said "played a role in either securing boxes of material in a storage room at Mar-a-Lago or maintaining video footage from a security camera that was mounted outside the room."
One of the sources speaking to the Times said there had been "gaps in the footage" showing the documents' movement, adding that "prosecutors have also been examining whether someone intentionally stopped the tape or if technological issues caused the gap."
Earlier in May, the Times also said that prosecutors had questioned a number of witnesses about gaps in the footage (again, based on unnamed and unidentified "people with knowledge of the matter").
The accuracy of the claims provided by the unnamed witnesses remains to be seen, but their account is not what's crucial here. In the tweets by Snell and Li, the claim that footage was doctored is presented as fact, an assertion that has not been confirmed by prosecutors or verifiable elsewhere.
It's possible that when Trump is arraigned for alleged mishandling classified documents, we might learn about allegations of doctoring or editing of footage, which could be related to obstruction of justice charges. However, there simply is not enough verifiable information yet available to assert that Trump or his associates doctored footage at Mar-a-Lago.
The claims about doctored footage are not the only examples in which allegations surrounding Trump's indictment have been presented as fact. Newsweek recently investigated whether Trump's former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, cut a plea deal to testify against his former boss.
The plea deal claim was based on the account of an unnamed source, which Meadows attorney George Terwilliger said was untrue.
Newsweek has reached out to the Department of Justice and a representative for Trump via email for comment.
The Ruling
Unverified.
The claim about Trump potentially doctoring security cam footage at Mar-a-Lago is based on a number of reports that relied on unnamed sources close to investigations of the former president.
The accounts remain anonymous and there is no other information we can use to verify whether the former president doctored footage. According to the unnamed sources, while there were said to be gaps in footage, investigators were also looking at whether the gaps could be the result of a technical malfunction.
However, until prosecutors provide verifiable evidence that Trump doctored footage, the reports speculating the possibility should not be asserted as fact.
FACT CHECK BY Newsweek's Fact Check team
About the writer
Tom Norton is Newsweek's Fact Check reporter, based in London. His focus is reporting on misinformation and misleading information in ... Read more