Calls Grow to Search Trump’s Bedminster Estate After Moved Document Reports

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Legal experts are calling for officials to search Donald Trump’s estate in New Jersey’s Bedminster amid reports the former president told his Mar-a-Lago employees to move classified documents there before they could be retrieved by the FBI.

The Washington Post reported on Thursday that the former president told staff at his Florida resort to move boxes of documents into a Mar-a-Lago storage room in June 2022, just as the FBI were due to arrive to receive the materials for which they sought a subpoena, issued last May.

John Irving, a lawyer representing one of the two employees who moved the boxes, said they were unaware what was inside and that they were only helping valet driver Walt Nauta. The Post previously reported that Nauta had been ordered by Trump to move boxes of documents into a storage room at Mar-a-Lago after the former president had received the government subpoena to return the classified materials.

The next day, Irving said one of the employees also allegedly helped Nauta pack an SUV “when former president Trump left for Bedminster for the summer,” The Post reported.

Donald Trump speaks during a press conference announcing a class action lawsuit against big tech companies at the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster on July 7, 2021, in Bedminster, New Jersey. Trump remains mired in legal cases.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

When the FBI arrived in June 2022 to retrieve the classified documents, Trump’s legal team is alleged to have “explicitly prohibited” federal agents from looking inside a storage room at Mar-a-Lago. The FBI then raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in August 2022 and seized more than 100 classified and top secret documents, including some found in the storage room.

Trump has denied all wrongdoing in connection to the classified documents investigation, with his spokesperson calling the The Post’s reporting a “targeted, politically motivated witch hunt.”

Legal experts have now suggested that Trump may have moved some classified documents to his golf resort in Bedminster following claims the Mar-a-Lago workers packed an SUV before the former president left for there last summer.

“It’s easy to say ‘if DOJ believed docs were at Bedminster they already would’ve searched there.’ Nope. Sometimes a very promising angle in a case gets stuck in a holding pattern,” Tristan Snell, a lawyer and former assistant attorney general for New York state, tweeted.

“Also: the news about the SUV, which we’re just hearing now, may also be a relatively recent revelation to the Feds — who may still be following up on it. In other words — YES, the Feds may still search Bedminster. It may still be on their to-do list. These things take time,” Snell added.

In a series of tweets, former Department of Defense special counsel Ryan Goodman suggested that the allegations Trump faces with regards to the classified documents probe would be considered “much more egregious” if he were found to have moved them to another location while the FBI were trying to retrieve them. Goodman also noted the “interesting detail” about Bedminster in The Post‘s reporting.

Other social media users pointed to recent comments by Trump’s former lawyer Tim Parlatore, who told CNN that fellow Trump attorney Boris Epshteyn had dissuaded the former president’s legal team from organizing a search of Trump’s property in Bedminster for classified documents. A Trump spokesperson called claims “unfounded and categorically false.”

Last September, footage emerged of Trump and several others loading boxes onto a plane as the former president made his way from Florida to Bedminister in May 2022. The footage was filmed just days after Trump received the federal subpoena requesting all classified materials be returned to the National Archives and Records Administration.

“Better check Bedminster,” tweeted former FBI official Peter Strzok at the time, while sharing a still image of the footage.

The clip has since been re-shared on Twitter in the wake of the latest allegations.

Others have downplayed suggestions that the DoJ now must search Bedminster at this stage in the investigation. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Special Counsel Jack Smith is “wrapping up” the classified documents case and that indictments could be forthcoming.

“It’s amazing how many non-serious people on this site think they can make themselves look smarter and fiercer than the DOJ just by yelling ‘search Bedminster!’ As if the DOJ hasn’t already long ago considered that course of action and played it to the end one way or the other,” Bill Palmer, of the left-wing political blog Palmer Report, tweeted.

“Either the DOJ has already searched Bedminster without us knowing about it, or it’s used other investigative means to definitively rule out Bedminster without having to search it. One of these two things has already happened. That’s just obvious.”

In a statement, Trump spokesman Steve Cheung said: “This is nothing more than a targeted, politically motivated witch hunt against President Trump that is concocted to meddle in an election and prevent the American people from returning him to the White House. Just like all the other fake hoaxes thrown at President Trump, this corrupt effort will also fail.

“In the course of negotiations over the return of documents, President Trump told the lead DOJ official, ‘anything you need from us, just let us know,'” Cheung added.

“That DOJ rejected this offer of cooperation and conducted a raid on Mar-a-Lago proves that the Biden regime has weaponized the DOJ and FBI.”

Newsweek has contacted the DoJ for comment via its website.

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