FBI Thinks Trump Playing ‘Shell Game’ With Classified Docs After Box Found in ‘Bridal Suite At Mar-a-Lago’

Federal authorities investigating former President Donald Trump believe he’s playing a “shell game with classified documents” after another box was discovered after several searches and a lengthy journey to the Mar-a-Lago bridal suite that now serves as Trump’s office, say CNN sources.

CNN reporting teams have been breaking scoop after scoop on the Justice Department probes into Trump’s mishandling of classified information under the Espionage Act and his conduct surrounding the January 6 insurrection, which are now being headed by special counsel Jack Smith.

The latest scoop comes from Katelyn Polantz, Paula Reid, and Jeremy Herb, and involves the long and strange journey of a box containing classified material that was discovered in December — after the FBI searched the property and Trump aides had searched the property as well.

Some of the report’s key revelations include a colorful description of the box’s journey and some newsy tidbits as well. For example:

• “Investigators working for special counsel Jack Smith in recent weeks have interviewed a Trump aide who copied classified materials found in the box using her phone to put them onto a laptop. After a voluntary interview with the aide, prosecutors subpoenaed the password to the laptop, which she provided, according to one of the sources.”
• “People familiar with the Trump legal team’s efforts to locate documents describe a confusing chain of events that delayed discovery of the box, including having its contents uploaded to the cloud, emailed to a Trump employee, and moved to an offsite location before finally ending up back at a Mar-a-Lago bridal suite that is now Trump’s office – the very place that the FBI had searched just weeks earlier.”
• One person who described the box’s movements and the special counsel’s inquiry into it described federal investigators as suspecting a ‘shell game with classified documents.’ The person said Trump’s daily movements and instructions to staff are a core part of prosecutors’ questions as well.”

The various attributions used leave the reader guessing as to the identity of the sources.

Several weeks ago, Trump attorney Tim Parlatore addressed the box:

REID: As you just heard, CNN and other outlets reporting that you handed over additional materials, pages with classified markings, a laptop, and a thumb drive over to investigators. Tim, Trump has been out of office for two years. Why do classified materials keep showing up?

PARLATORE: You know, what has happened here that you’ve seen here and also in the Biden and Pence investigations is that the White House does not have proper procedures for handling classified information. And these documents, when they get backed up and sent out when people leave office, they do keep showing up, if you will.

We conducted a search back in December, which is where we found these documents. And we turned them over immediately. These were not turned over last week, although, you know, the DOJ leaked it last week. This was turned over back in December. And so, we have gone through, we’ve tried to work with the DOJ. We’ve tried to do searches of all of the relevant places. And anytime we’ve found anything, we’ve immediately turned it over.

REID: And as we understand it, the laptop that was handed over, it had scanned copies of some of the pages that were handed over. We’ve learned that this, the laptop belonged to an aide from the Save America PAC. So, why would someone from a PAC have access to classified materials?

PARLATORE: She was working as an aide to the president. And this is a box that had all of his daily schedules from his time in office. And she scanned all of those as part of, you know, being available for future speeches or biographies or things like that. And after we did the search in December and we found that within this box of thousands that there were a couple of pages that had a little marking at the bottom, which we turned over.

After that, we found out that she had scanned the box so that it would be digitized. She had no idea that there were any classification markings on anything. And as soon as we found out about that, we called up DOJ to let them know. And immediately provided them access to it.

Watch above via CNN.