Explosive new video and photo evidence from the raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate was revealed after a judge unsealed the search warrant.
Additional portions of the affidavit that the F.B.I. used to obtain a warrant to search for sensitive documents at Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald J. Trump’s private club, and residence in Florida, were unsealed by a federal magistrate judge on Wednesday, providing some new information about the extraordinary process that had taken place.
“The newly unredacted sections of the affidavit suggested that prosecutors had based their search, in part, on surveillance footage from cameras near a storage room in the basement of Mar-a-Lago showing Walt Nauta, a personal aide to Mr. Trump, moving dozens of boxes in and out of the room days before federal prosecutors arrived to collect any sensitive records still in Mr. Trump’s possession,” the New York Times reported.
“Much of the material in the affidavit unsealed on Wednesday had already been made public in the expansive indictment of Mr. Trump and Mr. Nauta issued in Miami last month. That indictment charged the former president with 31 counts of illegally retaining national defense information and a separate count of conspiring with Mr. Nauta to obstruct the government’s efforts to reclaim them. The judge who ordered the unsealing, Bruce E. Reinhart, had issued two previous orders unsealing separate portions of the warrant affidavit in response to media requests,” the NYT report added.
The warrant says, of the photo, “The purpose of the photograph was to show FPOTUS the volume of boxes that remained in the STORAGE ROOM. The STORAGE-PHOTO, which appears below, captures approximately sixty-one of the FPOTUS BOXES located in the STORAGE ROOM.”
The warrant also contains detailed descriptions of surveillance footage showing Trump co-defendant Walt Nauta moving boxes out of a storage room:
By reviewing the camera footage provided by the Trump Organization in response to the subpoena, the FBI has determined the following: On May 24, 2022, WITNESS 5 is observed exiting the ANTEROOM doorway with three boxes.
On May 30, 2022, four days after WITNESS 5’s interview with the FBI during which the location of boxes was a significant subject of questioning, WITNESS 5 is observed exiting the ANTEROOM doorway with approximately fifty Bankers boxes, consistent with the description of the FPOTUS BOXES. FBI did not observe this quantity of boxes being returned to the STORAGE ROOM through the ANTEROOM entrance in its review of the footage.
The next day, on June 1, 2022, WITNESS 5 is observed carrying eleven brown cardboard boxes out the ANTEROOM entrance. One box did not have a lid on it and appeared to contain papers.
The day after that, on June 2, 2022, WITNESS 5 is observed moving twenty-five to thirty boxes, some of which were brown cardboard boxes and others of which were Bankers boxes consistent with the description of the FPOTUS BOXES, into the entrance of the ANTEROOM.
Approximately three and a half hours later, WITNESS 5 is observed escorting FPOTUS COUNSEL 1 in through the entrance of the ANTEROOM, and FPOTUS COUNSEL 1 is not observed leaving until approximately two and a half hours later.
On June 3, 2022, FPOTUS COUNSEL 1 is escorted through the ANTEROOM entrance by an unidentified individual wearing a jacket with “USSS POLICE” printed on the back. The unidentified individual and FPOTUS COUNSEL 1 exit the ANTEROOM entrance moments later. FPOTUS COUNSEL 1 appeared to be carrying a Redweld envelope after exiting the ANTEROOM.