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CNN: Trump lawyers turn over more classified documents, laptop and thumb drive to DOJ prosecutors [1]
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Date: 2023-02-10
CNN is reporting that former President Donald Trump’s attorneys have turned over a multi-page document with classified markings and a laptop belonging to an aide to federal prosecutors in recent months.
The CNN report published Friday cited multiple sources familiar with the investigation. It said Trump’s legal team also handed over an empty folder marked “Classified Evening Briefing.”
CNN wrote:
The previously undisclosed handovers – from December and January – suggest the protracted effort by the Justice Department to repossess records from Trump’s presidency may not be done. Trump attorneys discovered the pages with classified markings in one document in December, while searching through boxes at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence. The lawyers subsequently handed the document over to the Justice Department. A Trump aide had previously copied those same pages onto a thumb drive and laptop, not realizing they were classified. The laptop, which belonged to an aide, who works for Save America PAC, and the thumb drive were also given to investigators in January.
The CNN report indicates that Trump’s handling of classified material was more reckless than previously thought, especially if classified material was copied onto an aide’s laptop and a thumb drive.
Special counsel Jack Smith has been investigating whether Trump should face criminal charges related to his handling of classified documents and possible obstruction of justice.
The DOJ had subpoenaed Trump in May 2022 to provide all classified records in his possession. Then on August 8, 2022, FBI agents searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida as part of a federal investigation into whether Trump improperly removed government records from the White House when his term ended.
During the search, FBI agents seized classified documents and other presidential records. Trump’s lawyers later found additional documents in a Florida storage facility and turned them over to the FBI.
Under federal law, U.S. presidents must transfer all of their documents and emails to the National Archives once they leave office.
Trump’s lawyers also searched three other Trump properties: Trump Tower in New York, the Bedminster golf club in New Jersey, and an office location in Florida, according to CNN.
On Thursday, CNN reported that Trump’s former national security adviser Robert O’Brien had been subpoenaed by Smith in both his investigation into classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago and into efforts to overturn the 2020 election. citing a source familiar with the matter.
The source told CNN that O’Brien has been asserting executive privilege in declining to provide some of the information that prosecutors are seeking from him.
CNN wrote:
The National Security Council should have been involved in the handling of classified documents at end of the Trump presidency, and O’Brien may have knowledge of how those records ended up at Mar-a-Lago.
Bloomberg, citing unnamed sources, reported that one of Trump’s lawyers, Evan Corcoran, appeared before a federal grand jury last month as part of Smith’s investigation into the handling of classified material and other government documents by the former president. Corcoran has been representing Trump since early on in his dealings with the DOJ over documents sought by the National Archives.
These latest revelations cap off a bad week for Trump. ABC and other news outlets reported that former Vice President Mike Pence has been subpoenaed by Smith who has requested documents and testimony related to the the failed attempt by Trump and his cohorts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which culminated in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Meanwhile, NBC reported Friday that the FBI had conducted a voluntary search of Pence’s Indiana home and had discovered an additional classified document.
In a statement, Pence adviser Devin O’Malley said:
"The vice president has directed his legal team to continue its cooperation with appropriate authorities and to be fully transparent through the conclusion of this matter."
O'Malley also said Pence and his legal team had "agreed to a consensual search of his residence that took place today."
The FBI also found some classified records in a voluntary search of President Joe Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware. The FBI had previously searched the offices of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, D.C. in mid-November after classified documents were discovered there by Biden’s lawyers on Nov. 2.
Last month, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Robert Hur, a Republican, as special counsel to review the Obama-era classified material found in Biden’s Delaware home and the Penn Biden center.
But the latest revelations about Trump’s reckless handling of classified material as well as his failure to comply with DOJ requests to hand over the documents stand in contrast with the transparent and voluntary cooperation by both Pence and Biden.
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