(TheRedAlertNews.com) – In a bombshell revelation about the FBI’s infamous raid of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, it has now been disclosed that during their search for classified documents, federal agents used props, including cover sheets marked “top secret,” for a photo at the alleged crime scene.
See the notorious photo from the FBI raid in the tweet below!
The revelation is based on court documents, The Daily Caller reports.
Jay Bratt, the leading Department of Justice prosecutor now part of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team, acknowledged in a recent court filing that FBI agents introduced these cover sheets during the raid to serve as placeholders while collecting classified documents.
These documents, according to statements from both Trump’s defense attorney and the special counsel, have subsequently been found to be disordered after the seizure, as first reported by Declassified with Julie Kelly.
The photograph of classified documents allegedly discovered at Mar-a-Lago, prominently featuring bright red “classification” cover sheets, gained widespread attention shortly after the raid.
Various media outlets reported on the image and the cover sheets as evidence of Trump’s improper storage of classified materials at his Florida estate.
“[If] the investigative team found a document with classification markings, it removed the document, segregated it, and replaced it with a placeholder sheet. The investigative team used classified cover sheets for that purpose,” Bratt elaborated in a recent filing.
In a document from May, Waltine Nauta, Trump’s defense attorney, noted that the placeholders used by the FBI to label classified document stacks were misplaced.
“Following defense counsel’s review of the physical boxes…and the documents produced in classified discovery, defense counsel has learned that the cross-reference provided by the Special Counsel’s Office does not contain accurate information,” Nauta stated, as reported by Kelly.
Further details emerged in an August 2022 court filing by Bratt.
“[Thirteen] boxes or containers contained documents with classification markings, and in all, over one hundred unique documents with classification markings…were seized. Certain of the documents had colored cover sheets indicating their classification status. (Emphasis added.) See, e.g., Attachment F (redacted FBI photograph of certain documents and classified cover sheets recovered from a container in the ’45 office’),” Bratt informed.
Kelly highlighted that Bratt’s original filing did not clarify the origin of these classified document sheets, though it was later confirmed they were brought to the scene by FBI agents.
“In other words, in their zeal to stage a phony photo using official classified cover sheets, FBI agents might have failed to accurately match the placeholder sheet with the appropriate document. This is a potentially case-blowing mistake, particularly if the document in question is one of the 34 records that represents the basis of espionage charges against Trump,” Kelly concluded.
Responding to Nauta’s concerns, Bratt conceded that the placeholders had been rearranged and not all were accurately paired with the correct document.
“In many but not all instances, the FBI was able to determine which document with classification markings corresponded to a particular placeholder sheet,” Bratt wrote in a plea for additional time requested by the defense attorney.
Simultaneously, as Trump faces charges for mishandling classified documents, President Joe Biden was investigated by a special counsel for his handling of similar materials.
Unlike the scenario at Mar-a-Lago, documents seized from Biden’s Delaware home were documented in boxes, not displayed with “top secret” placeholders.
DOJ and the media have lied about the infamous photo of alleged classified documents seized during FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago.
New court filings prove the FBI used cover sheets depicted in the photo during the raid.
That's not how the records were found:https://t.co/f0m2Zcvj0D
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) May 6, 2024
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