Trump Didn't Tell His Lawyers

NEW: President Biden only became aware of these classified documents being stored in his former office at the Penn Biden Center when he was informed by his lawyers they had discovered them, a source familiar with the matters tells @NBCNews.

— Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) January 10, 2023

Trump didn't want his lawyers to know. Had them moved around to keep them hidden. Refused to release them to NARA when asked to do so (after NARA became aware of them). Refused again.

“We’re talking about incredibly valuable secrets that the Russians would have been after. The Russians would have been trying to penetrate Mar a Lago day and night and very possibly did recruit spies to obtain these documents.”

[Jesse to control room DAMMIT STOP SCREAMING AT ME] https://t.co/jIxTKGFFAi

— Pete Strzok (@petestrzok) August 25, 2022

And btw, I think we can assume compromise even if Trump himself affirmatively did nothing. It just had to be accessed by someone already at MAL who has been recruited by foreign intel: The affidavit makes clear that these docs were just hanging out with zero security

— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) August 26, 2022

The affidavit makes clear that according to the government, the claim that the Trump team was asked to put a stronger lock on the storage room in the basement at MAL was not what they asked. They asked that the room be secured. Video showed people were coming in and out.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) August 26, 2022

The boxes, as we've reported before, were a mishmash of items - a raincoat, golf balls, a razor - and also, per the DOJ filing, other random papers jumbled in with 184 individual documents with unchanged classified markings.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) August 26, 2022

And then there was just the sheer volume of documents:

📌This is the money-paragraph so to speak. See also definitions section of affidavit. This is highest of classifications and includes materials that should not be shared with foreign nationals (NOFORN).

What notes from Donald? "Sell, sell sell?" or something innocuous? pic.twitter.com/tKqpFhXop1

— Jennifer Taub (@jentaub) August 26, 2022

Trump fought release of the documents until the FBI finally had to get a search warrant. The DOJ is now investigating whether Trump has still more documents in undislosed locations that cannot be searched because they cannot even be identified. Trump hired lawyers to attack the search warrant and took the matter all the way to the Supreme Court.

Biden's lawyers found the documents, notified Biden and NARA, and NARA picked up the documents and said all is well and probably the mistake here was theirs.

So, yeah, let's keep comparing this to Trump's experience which is still being investigated as a criminal matter and is one of the investigtations many observers say is among the most likely to result in charges.  FOX and Newsmax will play up the "scandal."  But reporters (maybe aside from CNN) will not all the differences, especially as the DOJ does an investigation (good!  As it should be!) and likely finds nothing here to be concerned about.  The investigation of Trump, on the other hand....

And the GOP whinging will provide ample opportunity to compare and contrast a President who follows the law v. an ex-President who thinks he IS the law.  Go back to that tweet from Baker at the top, and consider the world's reaction to Elmo's "Twitter files."  Did anybody even notice he's released a whole new batch?

And maybe even CNN got the memo:

https://t.co/txGppGDlBJ pic.twitter.com/AN2MxM47xd

— Robert (@Robotino627) January 10, 2023