We now have extra details about how prosecutors carried out their seek for labeled paperwork that former President Donald Trump stored after leaving workplace, regardless of court docket orders requiring that he flip them over.

On Wednesday, a Justice of the Peace decide unsealed extra parts of an affidavit submitted by federal authorities after they sought a court docket order permitting them to raid Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Florida final August. It has new particulars on safety footage that confirmed packing containers of paperwork being moved and the interactions Trump’s legal professionals had with prosecutors. But it surely nonetheless leaves some questions in regards to the case unanswered, together with how prosecutors got here to suspect that Trump hadn’t turned over all the paperwork in his possession.

The brand new model of the affidavit was launched simply earlier than Trump’s physique man Walt Nauta, who was indicted final month alongside the previous president, pleaded not responsible to the costs in opposition to him Thursday. He has been accused of allegedly performing at Trump’s path to maneuver packing containers of paperwork at Mar-a-Lago in an try to cover them from prosecutors. Trump has additionally pleaded not responsible to all 37 counts within the indictment, together with willful retention of nationwide protection data below the Espionage Act and one rely of false statements and representations.

Listed below are the most recent revelations from the affidavit:

1) Prosecutors relied on safety footage to construct their case in opposition to Trump

Newly unsealed elements of the affidavit cite safety footage of a hallway within the Mar-a-Lago basement, which led to the storage room the place most of the paperwork have been stored. The Trump Group turned over that footage in response to a June 2022 subpoena.

The affidavit describes footage exhibiting Nauta shifting packing containers out of the storage room and the anteroom resulting in it on 4 separate events between Might 24, 2022, and June 2, 2022. Throughout that interval, the FBI questioned him in regards to the areas of the packing containers. The affidavit stated that the footage exhibits him shifting “roughly 64 packing containers from the storage room space” and “solely return[ing] 25-30 packing containers” to that room.

The indictment accuses Nauta of creating false statements to the FBI about how the paperwork acquired to Trump’s residence and whether or not they have been saved in a safe location. At Trump’s instruction, he additionally allegedly moved greater than 60 packing containers of paperwork earlier than one of many former president’s attorneys was purported to evaluate them as a part of their response to a Division of Justice subpoena.

2) Trump didn’t initially argue to prosecutors that he declassified the paperwork

Trump has publicly maintained that he had a “standing order” to immediately declassify paperwork that he retained from his time within the White Home. However in accordance with reporting from Bloomberg, neither the Justice Division nor Workplace of the Director of Nationwide Intelligence has managed to seek out any such doc. And the newly unsealed elements of the affidavit present that his legal professionals — together with M. Evan Corcoran, whose exhaustive notes helped prosecutors construct their case — didn’t make that protection after they turned over an incomplete folder of labeled paperwork earlier than authorities raided the property.

That throws doubt on the notion that Trump tried to declassify the paperwork he had maintained and whether or not his attorneys knew in regards to the papers he failed to show over.

3) Trump’s legal professionals most likely by no means appeared past the storage room for labeled paperwork

The newly unsealed elements of the affidavit additionally present Corcoran was “not suggested there have been any data in any non-public workplace area or different location in Mar-a-Lago.” That instructed to prosecutors that it was “very seemingly” that his authorized group by no means searched past the storage room for labeled paperwork.

Authorities later discovered paperwork all through Mar-a-Lago, together with in a ballroom, a toilet and bathe, an workplace area, and Trump’s bed room. The indictment alleges that Trump and Nauta knowingly conspired to forestall the previous president’s legal professionals from reviewing a lot of the packing containers of paperwork. Corcoran, who was ordered by a Washington federal decide to supply data and testimony to the grand jury within the case, has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

4) We nonetheless don’t know all of the the reason why prosecutors believed that Trump nonetheless had paperwork in his possession

Huge chunks of the affidavit nonetheless stay below seal. And whereas the safety footage confirmed that Nauta moved the packing containers, it’s potential that prosecutors had extra causes to imagine that Trump was willfully retaining paperwork in brazen violation of a subpoena.

Former US Legal professional Barb McQuade, a College of Michigan regulation professor, advised MSNBC Wednesday that there may very well be “some witnesses that they’re making an attempt to guard … or some traces of inquiry they’re making an attempt to guard.”

On condition that the grand jury’s investigation within the case remains to be ongoing, we could not discover out what it’s that prosecutors try to maintain below wraps till the case goes to trial, which is at the moment scheduled for August 14.