Who ratted Trump out? His own lawyers.
WolfTracker
It was Trump's own lawyers that revealed to the FBI that Trump was hiding boxes of records.
"And the extraordinary search, the sources said, came after the justice department grew concerned – as a result of discussions with Trump’s lawyers in recent weeks – that presidential and classified materials were being unlawfully and improperly kept at the Mar-a-Lago resort." -Guardian
Also a Trump staff named Molly may have been involved.
[ Molly Michael * ]
WolfTracker
Actually the lawyers said she did not think the FBI would go to the extent of planting evidence and that she thought "they just make stuff up."
She claims she was precluded from watching what the FBI agents were doing but that normal and when a warrant is served on a property it is a potential crime scene.
Trump's lawyers actually gave the FBI the heads up that Trump was still holding boxes of records so now they are afraid Trump will fire them. They were required to turn over that evidence by law.
Also earlier in the year they subpoenaed Mar Largo surveillance tapes:
After Mr. Bratt and other officials visited Mar-a-Lago, they subpoenaed the Trump Organization for a copy of Mar-a-Lago’s surveillance tapes, a person with knowledge of the matter said. The company complied, turning over the tapes to the government.
That may reveal some interesting meetings and visitors Trump had and I hope he tapes go back a ways but generally tapes are erased and recorded over after a month.
WolfTracker
According to reports by Trump's people at Mar largo at the time of the raid the agents started in the basement and then in Trump's office and safe. They said nothing of consequence was found in the safe and they searched his closet and a number of boxes were removed.
That indicates Trump was hiding records that he had not turned over and was a "willful" violation of the law.
Trump is trying to claim he declassified documents but the declassification process is not a magic wand and any declassification requires time, date and name of person declassifying and a declassification stamp.
It also does not matter under 18 U.S.C. § 207 whether the records are classified and "makes it a felony to willfully and unlawfully remove, mutilate or destroy—or to attempt to remove, mutilate or destroy—any record deposited in any public office or with any public officer of the United States. That same provision also makes it a felony for anyone having custody of such records to remove, mutilate or destroy those records and imposes severe consequences: a violation requires the individual to “forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States.”
So, sounds like the FBI did find boxes of records Trump willfully removed and tried to hide and and may have attempted to destroy. That is up to 3 years per incident and prevents Trump from ever holding office if convicted.'
WolfTracker
One thing that will make it hard for Trump to defend is the National Archive notified Trump before leaving office the records had to be preserved and they sent agents to retrieve boxes that Trump had removed. If Trump had cooperated and returned all the records there probably would not have been a warrant for a raid issued and by not returning them and hiding them in his personal residence that is clearly willful and unlawful intent.
Most likely someone on Trump's staff was aware of these boxes and reported it to the FBI
What was in the records is not known and could be the records Trump tore up and had to be taped back together by his staff and Trump didn't want his obvious immature behavior to be exposed. That is how a narcissist like Trump would react.
WolfTracker
Not under 18 U.S.C. § 207 and it is a crime to remove records even if they are declassified.
If Trump did not follow proper procedure to declassify that also throws his claim out.
Jonathan Swan Alayna Treene
On Jan. 6, 2021, during an apparent seven-hour gap in White House call logs that the House select committee investigating the attack is now trying to piece together, then-President Trump's executive assistant, Molly Michael, was absent for most of the day, three sources with direct knowledge tell Axios.
Why it matters: Though sources said the Trump White House's already spotty record-keeping operation had virtually collapsed by the final weeks of his presidency, Michael's absence is a previously unreported detail that may play a role in explaining the incomplete records for a key stretch of time.
Her absence — coupled with the already shambolic state of record-keeping in the Outer Oval — also could complicate efforts to piece those details back together 14 months after that fateful day.What we're hearing: Keeping handwritten notes on Trump's unscheduled meetings and calls was part of Michael's duties when she took over as executive assistant from her predecessor, Madeleine Westerhout.
While Trump was in the Oval Office, the dining room adjoining it or the White House residence, he preferred to use the landlines — though also used his personal cell or received calls on the cells of his close aides, according to sources who witnessed this.He would frequently yell out, "Molly!," to get her to call whoever he wanted to talk to on a whim.But Michael, who sat just outside the Oval Office, was out on the morning of Jan. 6 for personal reasons.
She arrived at the White House in the late afternoon that day, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the situation.In her absence, the two staffers there during the critical hours of the Capitol siege were Nick Luna, the head of Oval Office Operations, who served as Trump's body man, and Austin Ferrer, a young staffer who assisted Michael in her administrative duties.By the time Michael arrived, late that afternoon, the White House was a "sh-tshow" in the words of one official who was there. Michael, through an intermediary, declined to comment for this story.Between the lines: Trump's constant attachment to his phone was legendary. But, as the Washington Post and CBS News first reported, White House call logs provided to the Jan. 6 committee show a gap of more than seven hours in presidential communications.
During the riot, Trump spent much of his time in the private dining room adjoining the Oval Office watching television, according to witnesses.Aides were walking in and out as the staff scrambled to try to pressure the president to issue a statement condemning the Capitol rioters.Trump had several known phone conversations that are not captured in the logs provided to the Jan. 6 committee, first published by the Washington Post. This included calls of intense interest to the committee, including with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.How it worked: Typically, each morning, the office of the Staff Secretary would leave in the Outer Oval a folder containing the president's briefing materials and also a printed private schedule of his planned day. But Trump would frenetically and repeatedly break his schedule.
In fact he had such frequent departures — with the Oval Office at times resembling a rush-hour train station — that even during the most functional periods of his presidency his executive assistants were routinely missing meetings and calls.For at least a few years, Westerhout — and, later, Michael — did their best to capture the president's spontaneous meetings and calls as they popped up throughout the day, according to their colleagues who watched them do so.They would jot down, in handwritten notes on top of the printed private schedule, who the president had spoken with that day in addition to his previously scheduled meetings.The intrigue: Trump reserved some of his more sensitive calls for when he was in the White House residence.
For instance, one source with direct knowledge of his practices said Trump would not call Steve Bannon when he was in the Oval Office.
Instead, the source said, Trump's conversations with his controversial former chief strategist — captured in the call logs published by the Post — were from the residence.
At the end of each day, Trump's assistants in the Outer Oval would take the president's private schedule that day — along with their handwritten notes — to the Staff Secretary's office.
These notes were then sent for official records preservation — part of the White House staff's obligation under the Presidential Records Act of 1978.The presidential records-keeping law is considered to be expansive, and include preserving emails, text messages and phone records regardless of the device used, presidential historian Lindsay Chervinsky told the Associated Press.But, but, but: The law largely depends on good faith from presidents and their staff.
No president has ever been punished for violating the Presidential Records Act.
"The implementation of that act is really important, because there is no real mechanism for enforcement," Martha Kumar, co-founder and director for the White House Transition Project, told Axios."It depends on the goodwill of the president; if the president wants to avoid record-keeping, then there's a way of doing it."Trump tested that good faith more than any president in recent memory.
He frequently tore up documents, leaving career staff to stick them back together to meet record-keeping laws.
Papers were even found clogging the toilets in the White House residence, as the New York Times' Maggie Haberman first reported.
In early 2020, when COVID-19 hit the United States and the wheels started falling off of Trump's re-election bid, his White House was consumed even more than usual by chaos.The already casual record-keeping fell away.Sources with direct knowledge of the situation told Axios Michael began taking fewer and fewer records of the president's off-schedule meetings and calls.
Staff began questioning the value of doing this type of record-keeping at all.Two former officials said Outer Oval staff were poorly served by their superiors and never properly briefed on crucial obligations of their jobs.At least once, during the first year of Trump's presidency, the White House Counsel's Office issued a stern warning about their obligation to preserve a wide and detailed account of the president's movements, actions and communications, according to a source with direct knowledge.The bottom line: One of the biggest challenges to the legal requirements was the President’s habitual use of his own or aides' cell phones to place and receive calls.
Thus far, such calls on Jan 6 have remained outside public record keeping.
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