Bombshell Jack Smith Report Reveals Why Trump Hoarded Classified Docs

When the FBI raided Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in 2022 and found that the former president had stolen hundreds of classified documents from the White House, stashing them in the club’s closets and showers, one question stood out: Why? Was Trump coordinating with Russian intelligence? Hiding proof of aliens?

As it turns out, the answer was more self-serving: Former special counsel Jack Smith concluded that Trump took the documents to help advance his business interests, according to case records obtained by Democrats and reviewed by MS NOW.

“Trump possessed classified documents pertinent to his business interests—establishing a motive for retaining them,” one memo from Smith’s office read. “We must have those documents.”

The documents Trump kept included a classified map he showed to passengers on his plane, and one document so sensitive that only six people were allowed to view it.

Following the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago, Judge Aileen Cannon, who has a history of ruling in Trump’s favor, dismissed the federal lawsuit against him by arguing that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional. Cannon slapped a gag order on Smith and most of the documents related to the investigation. The special counsel resigned after Trump was reelected in 2024.

The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, sent Attorney General Pam Bondi a letter Tuesday pressing her to investigate the president for his corruption and release all files relating to the case.

“These new disclosures suggest that Donald Trump stole documents so sensitive that only six people in the entire U.S. government had access to them, that the documents President Trump stole pertained to his business interests,” Raskin wrote. “This glimpse into the trove of evidence behind the coverup reveals a President of the United States who may have sold out our national security to enrich himself.”

Of course, it will be a cold day in hell before Bondi does anything that hurts Trump. The White House sent a typically petulant response in a message to MS NOW: “It’s pathetic that Democrats with zero credibility like Jamie Raskin are still clinging to deranged Jack Smith and his lies in 2026. President Trump did nothing wrong.”

President Donald Trump has sent a peace plan to Iran—but is anyone actually reading it?

The United States transmitted a 15-point peace plan to Iran through Pakistan, betraying the president’s eagerness to build an off-ramp from the spiraling conflict he helped launch in the Middle East, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

But it wasn’t clear that the deal would be accepted, or even entertained, by Iran.

Iranian representatives have submitted their own conditions for a ceasefire deal, including demands for the closure of all American bases in the Gulf, lifting sanctions, and reparations for the war, according to The Wall Street Journal. The officials also demanded that Tehran be permitted to keep its missile program and be allowed to collect fees from ships that pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

While the exact details of Trump’s plan are unknown, it addressed Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear programs, the targets of much of Israel and America’s bombing campaign, as well as maritime routes, the officials told the Times.

Iranian officials have struggled to safely communicate or meet amid threats against their lives, U.S. officials told the Times. Iranian officials have previously flat-out ignored requests to negotiate with the United States, and denied having entered talks.

It also wasn’t clear whether Israel was on board with the proposal. The Israeli military announced Wednesday morning that it had launched a new series of strikes against Tehran. Israel said that it had fired more than 15,000 since the war started. Iran continued its retaliatory strikes against Israel. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps demanded assurances that the war would not restart, and requested that Israel stop strikes against Hezbollah, the Iran-aligned Lebanese militia.

Despite Trump’s claim that U.S. officials have held productive conversations with Iran, the Pentagon is planning to deploy some 2,000 troops from the 82nd Airborne Division to the Persian Gulf.

Democrats have successfully flipped a Florida state House seat blue in the same district where President Trump’s sprawling Mar-a-Lago estate lies.

First-time candidate Emily Gregory defeated Trump-backed Jon Maples—a former council member and self-described “conservative outsider,” by just over two percentage points in a special election for Florida’s 87th district House seat on Tuesday. The victory is a significant development in the deep-red district that Trump seems to spend half of his time in.

“I think it demonstrates where the Florida voter is,” Gregory said to Politico after the victory. “They want someone who is focused on solutions and the issues and not focused on the noise.”

Gregory’s campaign focused more on affordability, housing, and health care, and less on Trump, her most famous constituent, telling MS NOW she doesn’t “think all of that much about it.” She’ll likely run again in the general election in November.

“He’s one of 115,000 registered voters in District 87,” Gregory said. “My opponent made, you know, him forefront in his campaign, and I focused more on the voters in district 87.”

“Floridians are tired of the chaos, corruption, and sky-high prices on everything from groceries to gas and health care,” Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said in a statement. “They are voting for trusted leaders like Emily to steady the ship and return commonsense, people-centered solutions back to our communities.”

With Gregory’s win, Democrats have now flipped over two dozen seats in either fully red or purple states—and are gaining momentum for what will likely be a very successful midterm election in November.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth just perfectly summed up Donald Trump’s reckless military campaign in Iran.

Speaking in the Oval Office alongside Trump Tuesday, Hegseth insisted that the Pentagon had established its own role in ongoing negotiations.

“The air campaign that we’ve conducted, that Israel’s conducted alongside us, was one for the history books, truly. And it’s because we have a president of the United States that, when he sends his warfighters out to fight, he unties their hands to actually go out and close with and destroy the enemy as viciously as possible from moment one,” Hegseth said.

“And that’s why we see ourselves as part of this negotiation as well. We negotiate with bombs.”

How exactly is that working out for Hegseth? Not so great.

The Pentagon is reportedly planning to deploy 3,000 troops from the 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East, despite Trump’s claim that U.S. officials have held productive conversations with Iran. Iranian officials have flat-out ignored requests to negotiate with the United States, and denied having entered talks. Some have speculated Trump’s surprise announcement was merely an attempt at market manipulation.

As Iran sent another wave of attacks across the Middle East Tuesday, Trump insisted they wanted to “make a deal.” Meanwhile, the Strait of Hormuz is still closed under threat of attack from Iran, halting global trade and sending energy prices soaring.

Still, Hegseth suggested that the U.S. keeping its finger on the big red button is helping things. “You have a choice as we loiter over the top of Tehran, as the president talked about, about your future. [The] president has made it clear that you will not have a nuclear weapon, the war department agrees. Our job is to ensure that.”

Neiyerver Adrián Leon Rengel, a 28-year-old Venezuelan man deported by the Trump administration to CECOT prison in El Salvador, is trying to make sure what happened to him will never happen again.

CBS News confirmed Leon Rengel had filed a first-of-its-kind federal lawsuit on Tuesday against the United States, seeking $1.3 million in damages for false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Leon Rengel was one of hundreds of immigrants deported to CECOT, a notoriously inhumane institution, for four months, before being released in a prisoner swap in July 2025. He alleges that he was beaten and abused by guards, and forced to drink the water that he and other prisoners had washed themselves in.

“There came a point when I thought about hanging myself with the sheet they gave us,” Leon Rengel told CBS News in Spanish.

A report from Human Rights Watch has documented how Venuezelans endured “arbitrary detention,” “torture,” and sexual abuse at CECOT.

The lawsuit also alleges that Leon Rengel, who had an active asylum case at the time of his deportation, had no criminal record besides one misdemeanor—in which he paid a small fine for possession of drug paraphernalia—and that the Department of Homeland Security incorrectly determined he was a gang member because he had a tattoo of a lion and a hair clipper.

Leon Rengel told CBS News he was a barber and was not part of any gang. Others at CECOT have also said they were told their tattoos were the reason they were detained.

DHS continues to claim Leon Rengel was a gang member, though it told CBS that providing any proof of this would “undermine” national security.

Regardless of whether you think immigrants should be allowed to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, the federal government is meant to abide by due process laws and wait for deportation cases to be heard before taking action. The Trump administration not only illegally sent people out of the country but sent them to prisons to be tortured. It amounts to one of the cruelest of the many crimes committed by the Trump regime. We can only hope Leon Rengel gets his day in court.