Donald Trump was warned well in advance of a raid at Mar-a-Lago if he failed to comply with a subpoena to turn over classified documents, according to audio notes taken by his attorney.
Evan Corcoran, the then-lead attorney on the case, notified the former president in May 2022 about the possibility that the FBI could raid his Florida property, shortly after the Justice Department issued a grand jury subpoena ordering him to return all documents. secrets. , ABC News reported on Wednesday.
“The next step was to talk to the former president about complying with that subpoena,” Corcoran noted in a voice memo on his phone from May 12, 2022, when he and another attorney, Jennifer Little, flew to Florida to meet with Trump.
Corcoran recalled that as Trump spoke during the meeting about Hillary Clinton and all the “great things” she had done for the country, he and Little brought the conversation back to compliance with the subpoena.
At the time, Trump had delivered 15 boxes of classified material from his Palm Beach home, but the Justice Department believed he was holding on to even more.
Evan Corcoran, Donald Trump’s former lead attorney in the classified documents case, recorded a series of voice memos about his conversation with his client in May 2022.AP
“We have a grand jury subpoena and the alternative is if you don’t comply with the grand jury subpoena, you could be held in contempt,” Corcoran warned him.
Trump asked: “What if we just don’t respond at all or don’t cooperate with them?”
“Well, there’s a chance they could go to a judge and get a search warrant, and they could get here,” Corcoran replied.
The FBI executed the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago on August 8, 2022, a move that Trump denounced at the time as a “shocking break-in” and an “illegal raid and search.”
The recordings have since become the centerpiece of special prosecutor Jack Smith’s case, which accuses the former president of masterminding a criminal conspiracy to hide a trove of classified records from federal officials and his own lawyer, Corcoran.
Trump, 77, has pleaded not guilty to 37 federal charges related to his hoarding of boxes of documents he had removed from the White House after leaving office.
Trump has denied wrongdoing in the classified documents case.AP
Corcoran, a Princeton alum, was hired by Trump in April 2022, after the FBI launched an investigation into his handling of classified records.
During the May 2022 meeting, Trump continued to pressure his lawyers, according to the indictment, allegedly telling them, “I don’t want anyone going through my boxes” and “Wouldn’t it be better if we told them?” Don’t we have anything here?
Little reportedly told Corcoran that “there’s no way [Trump is] I was going to accept anything and I was going to deny that there were any more boxes,” according to the voice memo transcripts.
Ultimately, Trump agreed to have Corcoran return to Mar-a-Lago two weeks later to search the property’s basement storage area for classified documents.
The lawyer was assured that the underground storage space was the only place containing classified records at Mar-a-Lago, and Trump allegedly told him, “I have boxes in my basement that I really don’t want you to go through.” .”
The FBI raided the former president’s Mar-a-Lago in August last year.AFP via Getty Images
Over the course of the next two weeks, according to the indictment, a pair of Mar-a-Lago workers allegedly removed dozens of boxes from the warehouse “on Trump’s orders.”
When Corcoran returned to search the warehouse, he found only 38 documents and turned them over to the FBI, along with a certification assuring the feds that the former president had fully complied with the subpoena.
But when FBI agents arrived at Trump’s property in August, they discovered 102 more classified documents in boxes hidden throughout the property, including in a bathroom.
When asked to comment on Corcoran’s voice notes, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told ABC News, in part: “Whether or not the lawyers’ notes are detailed doesn’t matter; these notes reflect the legal opinions and thoughts of the attorney, not the client.”
Cheung also stressed that Trump “offered full cooperation with the Department of Justice and told the key official of the Department of Justice, in person: ‘Anything you need from us, let us know.’”
The 45th president has pleaded not guilty to a total of 91 state and federal charges in four different cases, ranging from hush payments to election interference.
Categories: Trending
Source: vtt.edu.vn