Federal prosecutors have launched a grand jury investigation into whether secret White House documents found at former President Donald Trump’s home in Florida were mishandled, according to two people informed.
The intensifying investigation suggests that the Department of Justice is investigating the role of Mr. Trump and other White House officials in their work with sensitive material in the final stages of his administration.
In recent days, the Ministry of Justice has taken a series of steps that show that its investigation has advanced beyond the preliminary stages. Prosecutors have issued a summons to the National Archives and Records Office to receive the boxes of classified documents, according to two acquaintances, who wished to remain anonymous due to the ongoing investigation.
According to one person, the authorities have also requested interviews with people who have worked at the White House in the last days of Mr Trump’s presidency.
The investigation focused on the National Archives’ discovery in January that at the end of Mr Trump’s term, he had taken 15 White House boxes containing government documents, memoirs, gifts and letters from his home in Mar-a-Lago.
After the boxes were returned to the National Archives, its archivists found documents containing “items marked as classified national security information,” the congressional agency said in February. In April, it was announced that the federal authorities were in the preliminary stages of investigating the processing of classified documents.
The summons sent to the National Archives in recent days for classified documents is one of a series of requests the Justice Department has made to the Trump administration’s document agency in recent months, according to the two.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice declined to comment. The Public Relations Office of the National Archives did not return an email requesting comment. Mr Trump’s spokesman Taylor Budovic said: “President Trump has consistently processed all documents in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. Late attempts to guess this clear fact are politically motivated and wrong. “
Charges are rarely raised in investigations into the processing of classified documents. But the Department of Justice usually conducts them to determine if any highly sensitive information may have been leaked so that the intelligence community can take steps to protect the sources and methods.
It is alleged that the documents in question were stored at the White House residence before being packed and sent to Mar-a-Lago. The investigation focuses on how the documents reached the residence, who put them in boxes, whether anyone knew that secret materials were illegally taken out of the White House and how they were eventually stored in Mar-a-Lago, according to a person who is familiar with the issue, who also speaks on condition of anonymity.
An investigation in 2016 against Hillary Clinton on a similar issue related to her personal email account has ended without being charged. And in the case of Mr Trump, legal experts have said, presidents have the ability, while in office, to essentially declassify whatever information they want, further complicating possible prosecutions.
The classified documents in question are considered presidential records under federal law. Because of this distinction, Mr. Trump’s lawyers were notified of a request from the Department of Justice, which allowed them to block their release by going to court to overturn the subpoena. It is unclear whether the lawyers responded.
Last year, Mr. Trump’s lawyer unsuccessfully went to court to stop the National Archives from handing over a number of presidential records to a special committee of Congress investigating the January 6, 2021 attacks on the Capitol.
The question of how Mr. Trump handled the sensitive materials and documents he received as president has been looming throughout his tenure in and outside the White House. He is known to tear pieces of official paper that were handed to him, forcing officials to re-glue them together because it is illegal to destroy presidential records. A forthcoming New York Times reporter’s book reveals that residence officials will find lumps of torn paper clogging a toilet and believe he threw them inside. They did not know the subjects or the content of the documents.
The investigation of the classified documents adds to a number of legal issues that Mr Trump still faces 15 months after leaving office. A Atlanta local prosecutor is investigating whether he and his allies illegally interfered in the results of the 2020 election in Georgia, and the New York State Attorney General is investigating the finances of Mr. Trump’s company.
Trump’s investigations
Map 1 of 8
Many inquiries. Ever since Donald J. Trump has resigned, and the former president is facing civil and criminal investigations across the country over his business dealings and political activities. Here’s a look at the remarkable queries:
Westchester County Criminal Investigation. Westchester County, New York County Attorney’s Office appears to be focused, at least in part, on whether the Trump Organization has misled local officials about the value of a golf course, the Trump National Golf Club Westchester, to cut its taxes.
Despite Mr. Trump’s role in helping incite the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 and his other efforts to disrupt the counting and certification of elections, there are no indications so far that the Department of Justice has begun investigating any criminal guilt he may have on these matters.
But the actions of prosecutors in the case with the documents show that the Ministry of Justice under the leadership of Attorney General Merrick B. Garland is at least inclined to consider an issue that could ultimately directly affect the president’s behavior.
Democrats, Republicans against Trump and even President Biden were disappointed with Mr Garland for his apparent reservation to investigate Mr Trump for his role in trying to cancel the 2020 election.
Now the decision to investigate the secret documents could draw the agency even deeper into political tensions in the country. Such investigations usually take at least a year, putting Mr Garland on the path to potentially having to complete it at the same time as Mr Trump is running for president again.
During the 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump made the attack on Ms. Clinton for her handling of classified information a central part of her rallies and remarks to the media, which helped undermine her trust among voters.
The Ministry of Justice and the FBI launched an investigation into whether she used misclassified information when she relied on a personal email account as secretary of state shortly after she began running for president in 2015.
This investigation, which ended with then-FBI Director James B. Comey, who held a press conference shortly before the two countries held their nomination conventions in the summer of 2016, found that Ms. Clinton had strictly classified information in her emails, but no charges have been filed against her or anyone else.
To prove prosecutors a crime of mishandling classified material, authorities will likely need evidence to show that the person in question knowingly and intentionally violated the law. In this case, it would mean proving that the person was told that exporting information outside secure channels would violate the law.
Adam Goldman contributed to the report.
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