Trump showed off secret documents at Mar-a-Lago dining room, ex-aide claims

[Kamaji]

Trump showed off secret documents at Mar-a-Lago dining room, ex-aide claims: ‘He has no respect for classified information’

By Jesse O’Neill   
July 3, 2023

A one-time top spokesman for former President Donald Trump says she saw the embattled Republican show off classified documents to guests at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Stephanie Grisham, who served as both White House communications director and press secretary — as well as press secretary and chief of staff to then-first lady Melania Trump — made the claim on MSNBC’s “Alex Witt Reports” Saturday when asked about her former boss’s alleged mishandling of the top secret files.

“I watched him show, uh, documents to people at Mar-a-Lago on the dining room patio. So, he has no respect for classified information. Never did,” Grisham told Witt.

The 46-year-old then referenced a recently surfaced audio tape of Trump, 77, discussing and apparently showing off “highly confidential” and “secret” documents to a writer, a publisher and two members of his staff at his New Jersey golf course in July 2021.

*  *  *

Source:  https://nypost.com/2023/07/03/stephanie-grisham-says-donald-trump-flaunted-classified-documents/

[LMAO]

The prosecution is going to have to prove all of this, of course. But if this is true, Trump is in deep trouble.

[corbe]

   WOW, this is so uncharacteristic.


Trump campaign blasts Stephanie Grisham for 'lying' about classified documents

by Rachel Schilke, Breaking News Reporter
July 03, 2023 06:01 PM

Donald Trump's campaign blasted former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham for "lying" about the former president's mishandling of classified documents.

Grisham appeared on MSNBC's Alex Witt Reports on Saturday, and when asked to comment on Trump's federal indictment, she said she had seen Trump display classified materials to people at private meetings at his home in Mar-a-Lago.

"I watched him show documents to people at Mar-a-Lago on the dining room patio. So, he has no respect for classified information. Never did," Grisham said. "You know, listening to that exchange every time, it just makes me so angry. He talks specifically that he should have declassified it, but he didn’t."

Trump pleaded not guilty to 37 counts, several relating to the violation of the Espionage Act, in Miami on June 13. The indictment was the result of an almost yearlong special counsel investigation into the hundreds of classified documents, some marked "top secret" or "confidential," that were found during an FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago in August 2022.

<..snip..>

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/campaigns/trump-campaign-blasts-stephanie-grisham-classified-documents

[catfish1957]

A brief review of her bio does not indicate an prior hard feelings and controversy.  Shows she left following J6 event.

Considering little or few axes to grind, there may be few reasons for her lie about the public sharing and viewing of the secret documents.

One thing for sure, is that if she does testify and there is a few other collaborating witnesses, this might be the biggest pickle Tumpy is in yet.   And enough to sink his candidacy. Tough campagining from Leavenworth.

[Sighlass]

Not a Trump fan, but why would she say this unless she had an axe to grind?

[corbe]

   She does remind me of someone that Trump Hired and Fired, 3 times, no less. 



                 It's no wonder she appears bitter.

[DB]

Not a Trump fan, but why would she say this unless she had an axe to grind?

Well, if it is true, and it sounds like it probably is, she's had enough lying from Trump about what she knows to be true. Trump alienates virtually everyone who has ever worked near him.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

This isn't nearly as legally damning as it sounds.

Gresham left the Trump administration on January 6th, on bad terms.  That means that everything she is talking about having witnessed personally occurred prior to then when Trump was still President.   And as President, he had the absolute right to show anything he wants to anybody.  So there was nothing illegal about what she is claiming she saw in Florida.

Otherwise, she's just spouting her own speculative opinion about what actually happened at the meeting recorded on that audio tape. She has no more personal knowledge about what actually happened there then do any of us. Her testimony in that regard legally would be worthless.
.

[Kamaji]

This isn't nearly as legally damning as it sounds.

Gresham left the Trump administration on January 6th, on bad terms.  That means that everything she is talking about having witnessed personally occurred prior to then when Trump was still President.   And as President, he had the absolute right to show anything he wants to anybody.  So there was nothing illegal about what she is claiming she saw in Florida.

Otherwise, she's just spouting her own speculative opinion about what actually happened at the meeting recorded on that audio tape. She has no more personal knowledge about what actually happened there then do any of us. Her testimony in that regard legally would be worthless.
.

Perhaps, but given the similarities, it probably comes in under one of the exceptions to the no-prior-bad-acts rules (Fed. Rul. of Evid. 404(b)).

[massadvj]

This isn't nearly as legally damning as it sounds.

Gresham left the Trump administration on January 6th, on bad terms.  That means that everything she is talking about having witnessed personally occurred prior to then when Trump was still President.   And as President, he had the absolute right to show anything he wants to anybody.  So there was nothing illegal about what she is claiming she saw in Florida.

Otherwise, she's just spouting her own speculative opinion about what actually happened at the meeting recorded on that audio tape. She has no more personal knowledge about what actually happened there then do any of us. Her testimony in that regard legally would be worthless.
.

I agree with you that it appears Trump did this as POTUS, so it is a big nothing.

But I agree with her that he probably had little respect for classification, or for the American intelligence apparatus itself, for that matter. He famously ignored his daily intelligence briefings, and relied on outside consultants for most of his intelligence.

I don't fault him for that, but he was blind to the fact that he was kicking a big hornets' nest, and hornets have a tendency to sting back.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

Perhaps, but given the similarities, it probably comes in under one of the exceptions to the no-prior-bad-acts rules (Fed. Rul. of Evid. 404(b)).

I dunno.  He had an absolute legal right to do what she said he did as President, so it isn't a prior bad act at all.  It's not probative of anything.

I think it's one of those things a prosecutor might try to introduce more to confuse a jury than anything else.  And given that this is a pro-Trump judge, I don't see it coming in.  Or it if does, I don't see how it helps the burden of proof.

[Kamaji]

I dunno.  He had an absolute legal right to do what she said he did as President, so it isn't a prior bad act at all.  It's not probative of anything.

I think it's one of those things a prosecutor might try to introduce more to confuse a jury than anything else.  And given that this is a pro-Trump judge, I don't see it coming in.  Or it if does, I don't see how it helps the burden of proof.

It's probative of his cavalier attitude towards secret material.

[DB]

This isn't nearly as legally damning as it sounds.

Gresham left the Trump administration on January 6th, on bad terms.  That means that everything she is talking about having witnessed personally occurred prior to then when Trump was still President.   And as President, he had the absolute right to show anything he wants to anybody.  So there was nothing illegal about what she is claiming she saw in Florida.

Otherwise, she's just spouting her own speculative opinion about what actually happened at the meeting recorded on that audio tape. She has no more personal knowledge about what actually happened there then do any of us. Her testimony in that regard legally would be worthless.
.

If he was POTUS at the time then I agree.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

I agree with you that it appears Trump did this as POTUS, so it is a big nothing.

But I agree with her that he probably had little respect for classification, or for the American intelligence apparatus itself, for that matter. He famously ignored his daily intelligence briefings, and relied on outside consultants for most of his intelligence.

I don't fault him for that, but he was blind to the fact that he was kicking a big hornets' nest, and hornets have a tendency to sting back.

I agree, but that still doesn't prove what he is alleged to have done during the specific incident recorded on that audiotape.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

It's probative of his cavalier attitude towards secret material.

But it still doesn't address at all the disputed issue, which is whether or not a classified document was actually shown to people at that post-Presidency meeting.

It may go to his state of mind - his willingness to show classified documents to other people - but it doesn't address whether the act of showing a classified document in that instance actually occured.

It's mens rea with no actus reas.

If there was truly admissible evidence that he actually showed such a document to someone, and he denied that evidence by saying he would never show classified information to someone who wasn't authorized, then her statement would become relevant.  But right now, there doesn't appear to be any evidence at all of exactly what document was shown, and whether or not it was classified. Without that, state of mind isn't relevant.

[Kamaji]

But it still doesn't address at all the disputed issue, which is whether or not a classified document was actually shown to people at that post-Presidency meeting.

It may go to his state of mind - his willingness to show classified documents to other people - but it doesn't address whether the act of showing a classified document in that instance actually occured.

It's mens rea with no actus reas.

If there was truly admissible evidence that he actually showed such a document to someone, and he denied that evidence by saying he would never show classified information to someone who wasn't authorized, then her statement would become relevant.  But right now, there doesn't appear to be any evidence at all of exactly what document was shown, and whether or not it was classified. Without that, state of mind isn't relevant.

We haven't been made privy to interviews conducted with the other people who were in the room at the time, as far as I know.