Judging Freedom - Trump worker told FBI Mar-a-Lago boxes moved by Trump_s orders

Episode Date: October 13, 2022

Trump worker told FBI about moving Mar-a-Lago boxes on ex-president’s orders https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation... #DOJ #maralagoSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here. Good morning for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, October 13th, 2022. It's about 925 in the morning here on. The lesser of the two is that over his objection, he's been ordered by a federal judge in lower Manhattan to testify in a deposition in a civil lawsuit brought by a woman named E. Jean Carroll. This is a long and complicated and tortuous history, but I'll compact it for you. Mrs. Carroll claimed that 20 years ago, Donald Trump raped her in a woman's clothing room at Bergdorf Goodman, then a very popular and high-end department store in New York City. Trump denied the allegations ferociously. Then while he was president, a reporter asked him about these allegations, and he made some comments about Mrs. Carroll, which were arguably defamatory, that she's a liar, etc. She sued him for defamation. He asked the Justice Department to defend him on the theory

that what he said, he said as president and was part of his job to defend the presidency. And the Justice Department, this is under Attorney General Barr, Trump's Justice Department, not only defended him but said replace him with us as the defendant. So the Justice Department would become the defendant. The theory was that you can't sue the president for what he says, but you can sue the American government if you're harmed. Of course, if the Justice Department became the defendant, then the case goes away because the Justice Department can't be sued for defamation. That was the theory. A federal judge rejected that. An appeals court reversed the federal judge. Then the same appeals court said, well, even though we reversed this federal judge, you filed the appeal in the wrong court. So they transferred the appeal from the Second Circuit

Court of Appeals in Manhattan to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. That court of appeals upheld the federal judge in New York. So now Donald Trump is the defendant. He is defending himself. He doesn't have the DOJ to defend him. And it's time for him to be deposed. And of course, he doesn't want to be deposed. He's got a lot more serious legal issues to be concerned with, about one of which we'll get to in just a moment. But yesterday, the same federal judge that ruled the DOJ cannot

commend the case as the defendant ordered Trump to travel to New York and be deposed next week. So now Mrs. Carroll's lawyers will depose former President Trump and then former President Trump's lawyers, at least one of whom works for the DOJ, will depose Mrs. Carroll. It's newsworthy because ordinarily former presidents are not forced into depositions. It's a long, tiring, tedious, frustrating process. Take it from me. All right. Second news this morning, far more serious and far more grave for the former president is a leak to the Washington Post indicating that an employee of Mar-a-Lago went to the fbi to reveal that he or she i'm going to say he even though we don't know who this is just for the sake of ease of communication uh that he

touched and moved classified documents in mar-a-lago and he didn't have a classified secure security clearance the fbi in interrogating this person, found the following, that after the grand jury in Washington, D.C. had subpoenaed the president, after the DOJ came to the president's home to talk about amicably returning the documents. After the president's lawyer, Christina Bob, signed a certification under oath saying, you have everything, President Trump ordered this employee and others to physically move classified documents

from a storage area in Mar-a-Lago to the president's personal quarters, the president's residence where he lives with Mrs. Trump. The DOJ, when they heard this, the FBI, when they heard this, then subpoenaed the security tapes of Mar-a-Lago. There are security cameras all over Mar-a-Lago. And they got the security tapes. And sure enough, everything that this employee told them is shown on the tape, including tapes of the employee himself moving these boxes. This is devastating news for the former president. This is the heart and soul of the government's obstruction case, that the president, the former president himself,

knew that these documents were classified, knew that the government wanted them, knew that they were the subject of a subpoena, and ordered them moved into his personal residence. We also now know why he complained about this. And when he complained about this, I agreed with him and I felt sorry for him. why did they have to go to Melania's closet he complained yeah why well because this employee said we brought these um these boxes to the president's bedroom now I'm going to guess that this employee who who's um testimony to the, it's not actually testimony, it's a conversation, Q&A, was revealed yesterday that this employee's information is in the affidavit that was used to secure the search warrant. We don't know this, but this is the type of information that the DOJ

would have used and would have given to Judge Reinhart in order to talk him into signing the search warrant. Some of us thought that maybe an FBI agent got himself or herself hired at Mar-a-Lago. Some of us thought that a Mar-a-Lago employee went to the feds. We now know that that's what it was. It appears that this Mar-a-Lago employee went to the feds to confess that he moved these boxes, whereupon the feds, of course, jumped with joy. They now have exactly what they're looking for, an inside employee who was told by the former president himself to participate in the moving, the hiding of these documents. Why is that a crime? It's called obstruction of justice. When you have something that's been subpoenaed and you hide it, that's obstruction of justice.

When you have national defense information that belongs to the federal government that is criminal to possess because you're not in a secured federal facility, whether it's classified or not, and the feds have subpoenaed it from you and you hide it. That's obstruction of justice. So this is very, very bad. I don't rejoice in saying this at all. This is very bad news for Donald Trump. I don't know where it's going to go This is very bad news for Donald Trump. I don't know where it's going to go. The feds have apparently known this for some time. For some reason, it came out yesterday. It's wrong to leak this stuff. And if it's going to a grand jury, it's criminal to leak it. It doesn't reduce the value to the feds and the harm to Trump if it's

leaked. But it just shows you in this area, Trump is right. The DOJ and the FBI are the best leakers in the world. Nevertheless, this is devastating news for Donald Trump. More as we get it. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.