THEY WILL HAVE TO CHARGE HIM NOW (UPDATED!)

The Washington Post reports today that TFG directed boxes of government records to be moved around Mar-a-Lago AFTER receiving a grand jury subpoena. Prosecutors have obtained the cooperation of a witness who was working at Mar-a-Lago at the time of the subpoena in May 2022.

Per the Post’s report, the unnamed witness initially told federal investigators they had not handled what the newspaper describes as “sensitive documents.” But in a later interview, the witness described being DIRECTED BY TRUMP to move boxes.

The Post cites “witness accounts” pointing to Trump ordering the boxes to be moved. Subpoenaed security video footage corroborates the testimony about the boxes’ movement.

This is significant. It shows Trump may not only have refused to comply with the subpoena, but moved boxes away from the government’s area of focus. That is clearly “obstruction of justice.”

In a filing before the Supreme Court on Tuesday, the DOJ suggested” “The FBI uncovered evidence that the response to the grand jury subpoena was incomplete, that additional classified documents likely remained at Mar-a-Lago, and that efforts had likely been taken to obstruct the investigation.”

This latest news really makes it hard to see how the government can avoid charging Trump with a crime. They appear to have clear, corroborated evidence that after receiving subpoenas for the retrieval of classified documents Trump directly ordered a resort employee to remove the records from the storerooms where the government’s investigation focused and to his personal residence.

If this is true, Trump didn’t simply resist returning documents he claims he believed were his. This isn’t some confusion about whether all the documents were returned.

This is Trump taking affirmative steps to hide the documents from government investigators.

This is how the government got the search warrant in August. They not only have surveillance tapes but they have the testimony of the Mar-a-Lago employee who did the moving. This is how they knew where to look.

This is open-and-shut obstruction of justice. Trump has no defense that can be offered in denial of the facts.

Things are going to break sometime between November 9 and December 31.

UPDATE: Maggie Haberman and Alan Feuer of the NYT have identified the witness as Trump aide Walt Nauta, a former military aide who left the White House and then went to work for Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago, who changed his testimony after first denying any involvement in the initial interview by the FBI when he was shown surveillance videotape of himself moving the document boxes before and after they had been subpeonaed.

Taylor Budowich, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, accused the Biden administration of “colluding with the media through targeted leaks in an overt and illegal act of intimidation and tampering.”

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