Plasmic Echo

Via the Washington Examiner:

A judge in Florida went on an unsealing spree this week, making public a trove of documents that had previously been filed under seal or in heavily redacted form in former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case.

The documents, which included hundreds of pages of exhibits, motions, and other filings, underscored the close communication the Biden White House and the National Archives and Records Administration had in the year before Trump was indicted.

. . . Trump has consistently maintained that NARA was out to get him and that the agency had been maliciously coordinating with President Joe Biden’s White House from the outset of its pursuit. Newly unredacted court papers showing Trump and Smith battling over access to discovery in February reveal examples of the communication Trump has criticized.

In fact, the records confirm a lengthy history of collaboration among the White House, the National Archives, and the Justice Department to identify records issues that could be used to bring charges against Trump, even against the background that transfer of records during presidential transitions is never smooth.

Trump’s defense attorneys also referenced some exculpatory remarks [NARA general counsel Gary] Stern made to Trump aides in the form of a letter draft on May 5, 2021.

“Stern’s draft conceded that ‘things were very chaotic, as they always are in the course of a one-term transition,’ and he acknowledged that ‘the transfer of the Trump electronic records is still ongoing and won’t be complete for several more months,’” defense attorneys wrote.

Stern and the White House had apparently been coordinating efforts as of May 2021, only four months after Trump left the presidency, and we can see by the FBI memo reproduced at the top of this post that by February 2022, the FBI was involved and had given the invesigation into Trump's records the code name PLASMIC ECHO. This piece at The Federalist outlines what the writer thinks are the most significant revelations from the new documents, and the long coordination among the White House, the National Archives, and the Justice Department is on the list:

Following Trump’s departure from office, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) began “to work with the White House Office of Records Management on exaggerated claims related to records handling under the Presidential Records Act (PRA),” a motion to compel discovery from Trump’s attorney’s states.

NARA General Counsel Gary Stern sent a letter to Trump’s PRA “representatives” in May of 2021 in which he said he “had several conversations” with the White House’s Office of Records Management and had raised some “concerns,” presumably about the documents in question, with NARA Archivist David Ferriero, according to pictures of the new, less-redacted filing posted by [reporter Julie] Kelly.

. . . The filing alleges Ferriero then “threatened” one of Trump’s PRA representatives in August that he was presuming that 24 “alleged — and non-existent” boxes of records were “destroyed” and that Ferriero would report his claims of missing documents to the White House and Department of Justice.

By September, Stern was sending around a letter “that we could consider sending to the Attorney General about missing Trump records,” according to the filing. Stern also sent an email admitting he “informally reached out to the DOJ counsel about this issue” and that “WH counsel is now also aware of the issue, and has asked that I keep them in the loop to the extent that we make any reference to [WH-ORM],” according to the filing.

However, the Gateway Pundit reveals another issue that isn't mentioned in other stories:

President Trump said two years after he met Obama before his 2017 Inauguration that Obama was on the brink of starting a war with North Korea. Trump claimed that Obama was “close to starting a big war” with North Korea.

The corrupt and criminal Obama/Biden gang was after documents related to North Korea years later when it raided President Trump’s iconic home of Mar-a-Lago and took President Trump’s documents that he legally had possession of per the Presidential Records Act.

This is reflected in an unsealed after-action memo written following the Mar-a-Lago raid on August 6, 2022 (click on the image for a larger copy):

I always acknowledge here that I have a certain sympathy for conspiracy theories that have a contrarian bias, and the idea that the Mar-a-Lago raid was an excuse to retrieve documents potentially compromising for Obama from a Trump trove is appealing. It reminds me of the argument in the 1991 Len Colodny - Robert Gettlin book Silent Coup

that former White House counsel John Dean orchestrated the 1972 Watergate burglary. His motive was argued to have been to protect his future wife Maureen Biner by removing information linking her to a call-girl ring that worked for the DNC.

. . . In 1992 John and Maureen Dean sued Nixon "plumber" G. Gordon Liddy for libel, after Liddy sought to support the core claims in Silent Coup. Liddy's testimony was the first time he spoke publicly in detail about the Watergate break-in, as he had refused to cooperate with investigators during the Watergate scandal. The libel case was dismissed without prejudice and was later refiled. In 2001 a federal judge declared a mistrial after the jury was deadlocked, and dismissed the $5.1 million defamation lawsuit.

No libel or defamation suit regarding the allegations in Silent Coup has ever prevailed in a trial, although settlements have been paid out of court. The idea that the Watergate burglary was undertaken to retrieve compromising documents is intriguing, as is the idea that there may in part have been a similar motive behind the Mar-a-Lago raid. At minimum, this reflects the threat Trump apparently represented to the White House even out of power, and even during 2021-22, when the likelihood of Trump running for president again seemed remote.

The unsealed documents also contain a reference to an alleged attempt by one of Jack Smith's prosecutors, Jay Bratt, to intimidate Stanley Woodward, counsel for one of the defendants in the Mar-a-Lago case. However, this was already public knowledge as of September, 2023, and the documents reveal nothing new.

There are no earth-shattering revelations in the new documents, but they do demonstrate an overall pattern whereby the White House used the National Archives, the Justice Department, and the FBI to pursue a political agenda against Donald Trump. I suspect the chief effect of this will be a serious effort to dismantle this aspect of the deep state should Trump be elected to another term in November.