Washington — A trove of newly released documents related to the federal investigation into former President Donald Trump’s handling of classified information sheds light on the secret grand jury investigation that preceded the charges against him and the sealed proceedings that occurred since his indictment.
The documents confirmed Tuesday that federal agents suspected the former president of seeking to obstruct the investigation in ways not previously acknowledged by prosecutors and that documents bearing classified markings were recovered from Trump’s bedroom in Florida in the months following the FBI’s search of his Mar-a-. Lake seaside resort. They also revealed a once-classified legal battle between defense attorneys who alleged misconduct during the investigation and a Justice Department that maintained its investigation.
Special Counsel Jack Smith indicted the former president on 40 federal counts related to his alleged illegal retention of national defense information – documents marked with classified classifications covering subjects ranging from nuclear capabilities to military policy – and obstructing the federal investigation into his handling of sensitive information. government records. Trump and his co-defendants, aide Walt Nauta and former employee Carlos de Oliveira, have all pleaded not guilty, and the former president has criticized the investigation.
The 2023 federal indictment against Trump alleged that he sought to obstruct investigators by making false statements to his lawyers. Prosecutors also said Nauta and de Oliveira allegedly participated in an unsuccessful scheme to get a Mar-a-Lago IT worker to delete security camera footage.
But in a 2023 judicial opinion that was released Tuesday, former Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the federal district court in Washington, D.C., wrote that it was “likely” that Trump went further than having allegedly misled his lawyers, perhaps “by instructing his agents to avoid the government.” He then understood that surveillance cameras had been delegated by the government.
Howell detailed numerous instances in which the former president, his lawyers and aides responded to federal requests for information about documents bearing classified markings dating from Trump’s time at the White House, located at his station seaside resort in Florida, after the end of his presidency.
In June 2022, a Washington, D.C., grand jury subpoenaed Mar-a-Lago security camera footage, information which was then passed to Trump by telephone by his then-lawyer Evan Corcoran.
“The government asserts that this conversation advanced a different step in the former President’s ongoing plan to thwart the government’s attempts to recover all classified documents in response to the subpoena,” the judge wrote.
Shortly after Trump’s call with Corcoran about the subpoena, the judge said, an anonymous witness, whose conduct matched that of Nauta, “rearranged his travel schedule, choosing to fly out for Florida on June 25, 2022, instead of Illinois with the former president. as previously planned.”
According to the judge’s account of events, government prosecutors suspected that Nauta’s change in travel was part of Trump’s “attempts to ensure that any further movement of the boxes to the storage room could occur off-camera.”
“The Government has provided sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the June 24, 2022 telephone call may have furthered the former President’s efforts to obstruct the Government’s investigation,” Howell wrote.
The judge’s widely reported 2023 opinion was a major turning point in the special counsel’s investigation into Trump’s conduct, as it took the relatively unusual step of breaking attorney-client privilege by forcing Corcoran to testify before a grand jury over his interaction with Trump. It was first made public on Tuesday and confirmed much of what had been previously reported.
Although the standard of proof in grand jury proceedings is much lower for prosecutors than in a jury trial, Howell wrote that because Trump could have used his lawyer to prosecute an alleged crime, the privilege enters he and Corcoran could not apply.
At the time, CBS News reported that Howell also ruled that prosecutors could use voice memos and notes from Corcoran’s time as the former president’s lawyer, despite challenges posed by the same attorney-client privilege.
In February, Trump’s legal team asked the federal judge overseeing the criminal case, Aileen Cannon, to dismiss the charges and suppress evidence based in part on what they considered to be an erroneous decision by Howell. That motion to dismiss was also unsealed Tuesday, after Cannon ordered much of the filing unsealed with redactions.
Cannon has not yet ruled on whether to grant some of Trump’s efforts to dismiss the indictment. A trial was scheduled to begin this month, but Cannon postponed it indefinitely, citing problems with pretrial motions and the use of classified evidence in the proceedings.
Howell’s 2023 opinion also details searches conducted by Trump’s lawyers after August 2022, when the FBI conducted its court-authorized search of Mar-a-Lago, for additional documents potentially covered by a subpoena of the grand jury for files bearing classification marks issued in May 2022.
In 2022, CBS News reported that Trump’s lawyers handed investigators more documents they recovered after hiring an outside company to search all of Trump’s properties for classified materials.
Two files were discovered in November of that year in a box in a storage unit in West Palm Beach, Florida, rented by the General Services Administration, according to the file.
A box containing four other documents with classification marks was discovered in a closet at Mar-a-Lago in mid-December 2022, Howell wrote, referencing reports included in a certification of compliance filed by the post office -Trump presidential election. These documents were part of a response to the May 2022 grand jury subpoena and “contained markings at the Secret level,” according to the court filing.
Trump’s office turned over the entire box containing the four documents to the FBI on January 5, 2023, along with two additional documents that should have been turned over after the May 2022 subpoena: “an empty file and another essentially empty folder marked “Classified Evening Summary,” which were found in Trump’s room at Mar-a-Lago, according to Howell’s notice.
“Remarkably, no excuse is provided for how the former President could have missed the classified documents found in his own room at Mar-a-Lago,” the judge wrote.
One of those lawyers, Timothy Parlatore, a former member of Trump’s defense team, later appeared for a grand jury interview to attest to the search.
That grand jury testimony was also the subject of allegations by the former president of prosecutorial misconduct. Part of the interview was also revealed Tuesday, in which a prosecutor on Smith’s team questioned Parlatore about his attorney-client privilege with his client, Trump.
“If the former president is so cooperative, why didn’t he allow you to share his conversations with the grand jury today,” the prosecutor asked, according to the transcript page released Tuesday.
“Are we really doing this,” Parlatore responded.
That transcript was revealed as part of an attachment to a brief filed by Trump’s legal team accusing Smith’s team of engaging in prosecutorial misconduct. The former president filed the petition in February under seal, and Cannon made them public Tuesday.
In the February filing, Trump’s team alleged that the Justice Department worked improperly with the National Archives and the Biden White House to bring the charges, and then “abused the grand jury process “. The allegations, made out of public view, were, according to Trump’s lawyers, grounds for dismissal.
Smith’s team, however, defended its conduct and rejected Trump’s allegations, writing in March: “This matter was investigated and prosecuted in full compliance with all constitutional provisions, statutes, rules, applicable regulations and policies. »
“There was no prosecutorial misconduct.”
The documents were unsealed just as Nauta is scheduled to appear in Cannon’s courtroom Wednesday. He alleged that the Justice Department engaged in selective prosecution in bringing charges against him because he chose not to cooperate with the investigation. Smith’s team objected to that claim, and Cannon is willing to hear arguments from both sides.
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