In a court filing Monday night, prosecutors revealed new photos of Donald Trump’s storage strategy for the classified documents he kept from the federal government, exposing just how haphazardly the papers—some of which contained national security secrets—were maintained.
The photos depict boxes stored upside-down and without lids, their contents spilling out on the ground and onto other storage containers. Other bins include Trump’s golf shirts sandwiched beside papers labeled “secret” or “classified,” while others are haphazardly strewn about between newspaper clippings, Christmas ornaments, presidential souvenirs, and cases of diet Coke.
The court filing from special counsel Jack Smith is a clear counter argument to Trump’s legal team, who claimed that the government’s failure to log the precise order of the boxes’ contents should be grounds to throw out the classified documents case completely.
Trump faces 42 felony charges in the case related to willful retention of national security information, corruptly concealing documents, and conspiracy to obstruct justice. Meanwhile, the Trump-appointed judge overseeing the case has slow-walked the trial so aggressively that she has been accused by legal experts of attempting to postpone it indefinitely. Last week, Judge Aileen Cannon began hearing arguments not related to Trump’s actions—but instead on whether Smith’s appointment to the case, and his subsequent prosecution, was constitutional.
If Trump wins the election in November, he could potentially pardon himself considering all of the alleged crimes are federal charges.
