Newly uncovered court documents claim that the FBI used props during its raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence for classified documents, which were featured in a widely circulated photo taken at the alleged crime scene.
Jay Bratt, the lead Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutor now part of special counsel Jack Smith’s team, acknowledged in a recent court filing that during the Mar-a-Lago raid, FBI agents used cover sheets labeled “top secret” as placeholders while collecting classified documents. However, both Trump’s defense attorney and the special counsel have admitted that these documents appear to be out of order post-seizure, according to court documents first reported by Declassified with Julie Kelly.
The photo from the crime scene, showing classified documents allegedly found at Mar-a-Lago adorned with bright red “classification” cover sheets, went viral in the weeks following the raid. Corporate media outlets extensively reported on the photo and the cover sheets, presenting them as evidence that Trump had been storing classified documents at his Florida property.
“[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 wrote in a recent filing.
In a court filing this month, lawyers for Trump co-defendant Walt Nauta, his former aide, stated that the placeholders the FBI brought to the scene to mark classified documents in stacks were incorrectly positioned.
“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’s attorneys wrote, according to Kelly.
She noted on the X platform: “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.”
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
“[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 wrote in an August 2022 court filing.
Kelly notes that Bratt’s original filing did not clarify the origin of the classified document sheets, but he later admitted that these sheets were indeed 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 reported.
