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Donald Trump

Revelation of secret Obama-era program casts doubt on

stated reason for Trump Mar-a-Lago raid
'The law protects only those who follow the norms of one party,' America First Legal Vice President Dan Epstein says
By Emma Colton Fox News

Published May 23, 2024 3:12pm EDT

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Trump's classified documents case gets delayed indefinitely

Fox News reporter Danamarie McNicholl discusses the complicated scheduling as the former president also faces a trial in New York on 'America Reports.'

FIRST ON FOX: A purportedly never-before-seen Department of Defense memo from the

Obama era appears to indicate the federal government already may have had original
copies of the documents seized at former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida
in 2022, raising serious questions about the pretext for the raid, Fox News Digital has
exclusively learned.

America First Legal (AFL), a conservative legal group, released Thursday what it says is a
newly unearthed memo from the Obama administration Department of Defense
"confirming the government may have already had originals of the alleged classified
documents involved in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s sham prosecution against President
Trump."

The document, titled Memorandum of Understanding Entered into by Presidential

Information Technology Community Entities, is from 2015, and followed an October 2014
Russian breach of the Executive Office of the President’s network. Then-President Barack
Obama took executive action to create the Presidential Information Technology
Community (PITC) to better protect the executive branch from such attacks, according to
AFL.

The PITC, which includes representatives from federal agencies such as the Department
of Defense and Homeland Security, effectively established that the president controls
information he receives through the PITC network.

NEW REVELATIONS IN FLORIDA DOCUMENTS TRIAL PUT TRUMP ON OFFENSE

AGAINST 'DERANGED' SPECIAL COUNSEL

America First Legal on Thursday released what it says is a newly unearthed memo from the Obama administration.
(Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

The executive action was made public at the time. However, AFL said it obtained a never-
efore-seen memo confirming the Department of Defense has been "operating and
maintaining the information resources and information systems provided to the President,
Vice President, and Executive Office of the President."

JUDGE UNSEALS FBI FILES IN TRUMP CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS CASE, INCLUDING

DETAILED TIMELINE OF MAR-A-LAGO RAID

The memo could mean that the federal government has stored and retained Executive
Office of the President documents, including "a substantial amount, if not all, of President
Trump’s classified documents," AFL said in its press release.

Former President Donald Trump sits in the courtroom during his trial at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City on May
21. (Michael M. Santiago/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

"What America First Legal has uncovered after months of investigative work paints an
unfortunate picture of the rule of law in Washington. A former President of the United
States — the most democratically accountable officer under our Constitution — was
subject to a politicized referral concocted by the Biden White House that led to an armed
FBI raid of his home — where his wife and youngest child live — and is now subject to
prosecution," America First Legal Vice President Dan Epstein said.

GOP SLAMS 'WEAPONIZATION' OF DOJ AFTER TRUMP'S MAR-A-LAGO RAIDED BY FBI;

DEMS CALL IT 'ACCOUNTABILITY'

"And to now realize that the Biden Administration could have avoided an illegal referral
process to recover records the government already possessed, that it could have used
normal means to ensure that records the former president believed should be housed in
his presidential library (not yet built because of the hordes of investigations aimed at
silencing him) were subject to a temporary hold for purposes of Archives’ review — yet
didn’t — speaks loudly to America: the law protects only those who follow the norms of
one party," Epstein added.

Trump's classified documents case also opened the doors to investigations regarding classified documents in the
possession of President Biden. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

AFL obtained the documents through litigation against the Department of Defense, the
press release said.

The DOD told Fox News Digital on Thursday that the department has "nothing to offer"
when asked about the memo. The White House and DOJ did not immediately respond to
Fox News Digital's requests for comment.

TRUMP’S LAWYERS PUSH FOR DISMISSAL OF CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS CASE,

ARGUING ‘PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY’

The FBI agents seized 33 boxes of documents in August 2022 from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago
estate in Florida, spurring another legal battle that Trump has called a "scam." The
investigation is overseen by special prosecutor Jack Smith, whom Attorney General
Merrick Garland appointed to the job, and has charged Trump with 40 felony counts,
including allegedly violating the Espionage Act, making false statements to investigators
and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

The FBI at the time told a judge there was "probable cause to believe" that classified
documents at Mar-a-Lago were being improperly stored and that investigators would find
"evidence of obstruction."

FBI agents seized 33 boxes of documents in August 2022 from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. (AP Photo/Steve
Helber, File)

Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and slammed the case as an "Election
Inference Scam" promoted by the Biden administration and "Deranged Jack Smith."

The memo’s disclosure on Thursday would not, by itself, absolve Trump of any potential
wrongdoing in the case; however, it appears to challenge the initial justification for the
raid.

The document is only the latest revelation raising questions about the government's
actions and motivations in the lead-up to the raid.

Presiding Judge Aileen Cannon recently unredacted more than 300 pages of evidence in
the case, including emails and conversations related to the Biden administration’s contact
with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) the year before the
documents were seized from Trump’s home, Real Clear Investigations reported . Biden has
publicly said he was not involved in the case, though the filings show other White House
officials were involved in the early stages of the investigation.

The documents unredacted by Cannon appear to indicate that just weeks after Trump left
office in 2021, the White House Office of Records Management under the Biden
administration began working with NARA "on exaggerated claims related to records
handling under the Presidential Records Act," Trump’s attorney wrote in a court filing to
compel discovery.

The Archives’ general counsel sent a letter to Trump’s Presidential Records Act
representatives in May 2021 asking the whereabouts of "roughly two dozen boxes of
original Presidential records [that] have not been transferred to NARA." The general
counsel explained that he "had several conversations" with White House Office of Records
Management officials where they discussed "concerns" regarding Trump's possession of
the documents, according to Real Clear Investigations.

The Archives' insistence that Trump turn over the records appeared to be due, at least in
part, to NARA's mission to "properly" preserve "a complete set of Presidential records," as
outlined in a Feb. 7, 2022 statement. But if the government already had access to the
documents through the Obama-era program, the documents in question would ostensibly
already be preserved.

The case was slated to head to trial on May 20, but has since been put on ice until Cannon
sets a new date. Cannon did hold hearings this week to address the defense team’s
motion for dismissal.

TRUMP FLORIDA JUDGE CANNON DENIES TRUMP DISMISSAL ON

‘UNCONSTITUTIONAL VAGUENESS’

This image, contained in the indictment against former President Donald Trump, shows boxes of records stored in a
bathroom and shower in the Lake Room at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. (Justice Department via AP)

Trump's classified documents case also opened the doors to investigations regarding
classified documents in the possession of President Biden and former Vice President
Mike Pence. Special Counsel Robert Hur announced in February that he would not
recommend criminal charges against Biden for possessing classified materials after his
vice presidency, citing that Biden is "a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor
memory."

SPECIAL COUNSEL JACK SMITH HITS BACK AT JUDGE FOR 'FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED
LEGAL PREMISE' IN TRUMP DOCUMENTS CASE

Former President Donald Trump is seen in New York City following the FBI raid at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida. (Felipe
Ramales/Fox News Digital)

FEDERAL JUDGE POSTPONES TRUMP'S CLASSIFIED RECORDS TRIAL WITH NO NEW

DATE

"Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone from whom
many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury
that they should convict him — by then a former president well into his eighties — of a
serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness," Hur wrote in his report.

The findings sparked widespread outrage that Biden was effectively deemed too
cognitively impaired to be charged with a crime but could serve as president. Trump has
meanwhile slammed the disparity in charges as a reflection of a "sick and corrupt, two-
system of justice in our country."

Earlier this month, the White House asserted executive privilege over audio and video
recordings related to Hur's interviews with Biden, sparking condemnation from
Republicans. Biden met with Hur for about five hours last year, when he was grilled about
his handling of the classified documents.

Republican House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky.,
responded to the executive privilege by arguing there's "a five-alarm fire at the White
House."

"Clearly President Biden and his advisers fear releasing the audio recordings of his
interview because it will again reaffirm to the American people that President Biden’s
mental state is in decline. The House Oversight Committee requires these recordings as
part of our investigation of President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents," Comer
told Fox News Digital last week.

"The White House is asserting executive privilege over the recordings, but it has already
waived privilege by releasing the transcript of the interview. Today’s Hail Mary from the
White House changes nothing for our committee. The House Oversight Committee will
move forward with its markup of a resolution and report recommending to the House of
Representatives that Attorney General Garland be held in contempt of Congress for
defying a lawful subpoena."

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