Classified documents ended up in Trump’s office months after FBI searched Mar-a-Lago

New this morning we have some reporting out of Washington DC. The Justice Department wants answers about a confusing chain of events that delayed the discovery of a box of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Sources say the contents were copied, emailed, moved to an offsite location before returning to the former president's office. Former President Trump, I'm talking about exactly where the FBI had searched just weeks earlier. Explanation for all of this now. I've seen it in Paula Reed live on Capitol Hill with more Good Morning to You. So what is this? What's going on here? Well, Don, the special counsel investigators, they want to know why classified documents keep showing up at Mar-a-Lago is recently as in December.

That's nearly two years after Trump left office. And the big question for the special counsel is whether this is just the result of carelessness or if this is part of some sort of intentional effort to obstruct their investigation. We've learned from our reporting that they are specifically interested in a box that was uncovered by Trump lawyers in December. This box contained what was described to us as a handful of classified documents. But complicating matters is the fact that back in 2021 a young staffer was instructed to scan the contents of this box. She scanned it with her phone and put those documents on a laptop. Now, we've learned that after she scanned them, this box was sent to an off-site storage space and only recently returned to Mar-a-Lago, where it was uncovered in December in a momento closet, where the former president keeps challenge coins and other mementos.

Now, federal investigators now have the laptop. They have the box of documents. They have a thumb drive. And we've learned that in recent weeks they also sat down with the staffer to ask, what exactly happened here? How did she come into possession of these classified documents? Because they want to know why this box was not given to the Justice Department, how it conveniently eluded the federal searches of that property, and whether the former president had any knowledge or anything to do with this. There's a really interesting development, and that is, you know, renowned conservative judge Michael Lutig is slamming Mike Pence for not only defying the special counsel, Jack's miscupina, but also calling it unconstitutional and unprecedented. How significant is that to hear that from Lutig? This is so interesting, Poppy, because, of course, this judge is a longtime Pence ally. This is someone who helped him work through the certification of the electoral results, called him a hero of a democracy.

So now the fact that he's coming out and he says, look, Pence doesn't have a chance in the world of defeating this subpoena from the special counsel, this is significant, because Pence is arguing that he should be protected from this subpoena under the Constitution's speech or debate clause. And that clause is supposed to protect legislators from any sort of law enforcement activity that covers their actual work in Congress. Pence argues that as president of the Senate, he should qualify. But this judge in the op-ed, he's very clear about how he feels. He says, look, Jack Smith's subpoena was neither politically motivated nor designed to strengthen President Biden's political hand in 2024, thus the jarring dissidents between the subpoena and Mr. Pence's characterization of it. It is Mr.

Pence who has chosen to politicize the subpoena, not the DOJ. But I will also point out that the Wall Street Journal editorial board recently came out and had a completely different take. They argued that because of what Pence did on January 6th, he should be given the benefit of the doubt. So clearly, intelligent minds can disagree about the Pence subpoena, but the opinions that really matter will come from the courts, and this issue could go all the way to the Supreme Court. You need like a treasure map to, like, some sort of something to think about. Tell me about it, Don. I know.

Paul is like, yeah, you telling me? Paula has one in her office. Paul, great reporting, and thank you for explaining all of that and breaking it all down. Thank you so much. I promised that is House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's defense for sharing 40,000 hours of security footage from the Capitol in Surrection with Fox News host Tucker Carlson. In the past, McCarthy said Donald Trump was responsible for the attack. The President bears responsibility for Wednesday's attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding.

These facts require immediate action by President Trump. But now McCarthy tells The New York Times, quote, I was asked in the press about these tapes, and I said they do belong to the American public. I think sunshine lets everybody make their own judgment. Democrats have been condemning McCarthy for the move, warning that it creates a significant security risk. Here's what Congresswoman Democratic Congressman Jamie Braskin said last night. We have security concerns about turning over the location of security cameras in the U.S.

Capitol that the police use. We have concern about the escape and evacuation routes that were used on that day. We don't want to just, you know, throw our hands up and say, well, let's just let everything go and let the insurrectionists have the materials that will allow them to plan the next January 6th. In a letter to Senate colleagues Wednesday, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said McCarthy's actions, quote, laid bare that this sham is simply about pandering to MAGA election deniers, not the truth. Well, it is true that his most conservative members wanted him to release this. They've been pushing him to do it. That's why he's doing it.

But I think the risk that you hear from other Republicans is they do not want to talk about January 6th, and this is just re-litigating it. And they don't think that works in their favor. Yeah. And then releasing it. I mean, quite honestly, to a person in the media who the courts have deemed not a legitimate news that it is basically editorial, and so it's not a news program. Look, I don't know if people, I can't say whether it should have been released or not, not have been released. But I think if it is, you should, at least it's all the news organization.

So is it something that he hasn't sunshineed, something that shines on everyone? Right. Much as they do with a FOIA request, when people have a FOIA request. A CNN does a FOIA request. Everybody gets the information, right? If Kevin McCarthy wants to release it to the media, then you release it to everybody so that everybody can get a bite at the Apple, and there can be, as he says, sunshine.

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