Natalia Chi
Washington – Donald Trump’s attorneys will have to testify before a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., investigating the retention of documents containing the former president’s secret markings, according to two sources familiar with the proceedings. The judge handed down the verdict in secret on Friday.
Attorney Evan Corcoran previously refused to answer questions from investigators about his conversations with Trump over concerns about attorney-client privilege. I wanted to ask Corcoran As investigators were trying to secure documents and Mar-a-Lago video surveillance tapes at Trump’s home, a source told CBS last week about the alleged phone call he made with Trump on June 24, 2022. told the news.
Smith’s team has told Chief Justice Beryl Howell that Corcoran’s claims of privilege may have been facilitated by the attorney-client interaction in question, and his client asked to force Trump to testify. Howell’s secret order only partially granted that request, ruling that a so-called “criminal fraud exception” applied to Corcoran’s testimony on a specific set of questions, the sources said.
Howell’s ruling indicates that she accepted the Justice Department’s request to apply the so-called “criminal fraud exception” to Corcoran’s testimony, compelling him to comply with the subpoena.
CNN first reported that Corcoran would be forced to testify.
Trump will likely appeal to the Federal Court of Appeals and ask a lower court to stay the order pending further litigation on the matter.
Corcoran, who once appeared before a grand jury in Washington, D.C., played his role in Trump’s response as federal agents tried to obtain records of classified signs allegedly taken from the White House to the former president’s residence in Florida. He has left the office. In June 2022, as Justice Department officials worked to collect the missing records, prosecutors wrote in court papers that when they met with the former president’s lawyers and agents, they were “double-wrapped in tape. I was given one Redweld envelope.” Documents,” and was handed a signed proclamation by a representative of President Trump declaring that all known classified documents had been surrendered.
The execution of a search warrant in August revealed that even more documents marked as classified were still in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. It says it has reason to believe that efforts were made to “obstruct” an investigation into how it was removed from the White House grounds without permission from the National Archives. is part of a survey of
Howell’s decision to deny Corcoran’s attorney-client privilege claim on Friday was her final decision as Supreme Court justice and supervisor of all grand jury matters in federal court in Washington, D.C. 2016 Obama’s 2020 nominee’s term expired on Friday, and she was replaced by another Obama-era judge, Justice James Boasberg.
As incoming Chief Justice, Boasberg will have to decide his own politically charged legal issues. This could include whether former Vice President Mike Pence should appear before another Smith grand jury investigation focused on the events of January 6. , the 2021 Capitol attack.
Mr Trump claimed presidential privilege over Mr Pence’s testimony, arguing that conversations between the then-current president and the vice president should not be subject to scrutiny.
Pence also opposed the subpoena, another legal tactic In an attempt to obstruct his testimony, he instead argued that his January 6th role as Speaker of the Senate would remove him from having to comply with a subpoena under the Constitution’s Speech and Debate Clause.
Trump has denounced a double federal investigation into his actions at the end of his presidency and used his Truth Social account to criticize Smith and the Justice Department for declaring him innocent. No criminal charges have been filed in any of the Special Counsel’s investigations.
Attorney General Merrick Garland Appointed to Smith November to oversee Trump investigation after ex-president 2024 presidential candidates announcedanother special adviser, Former U.S. Attorney Robert Herrwas appointed earlier this year to investigate President Joe Biden’s own handling of classified records after confidential-marked documents from the Obama era were discovered in his DC office.
On Thursday, another Trump supporter and former White House communications adviser, Margo Martin, testified before a classified documents investigation by a grand jury in Washington, D.C., according to a source familiar with the matter. Other former White House officials and Mar-a-Lago employees, including a former cooking employee allegedly seen in security camera video appearing to move a box of records inside a resort in Florida has responded to subpoenas in recent months.
Culinary employee Walt Nauta told investigators that the former president instructed him to do so. move box A federal investigation was ongoing, so it was moved to another location, a person familiar with the investigation told CBS News.
Multiple sources told CBS News that Howell has rejected claims of many privileges in the Trump world in the ongoing special counsel investigation, reasoning that he was the then president in question. denying the former president’s legal strategy to block testimony in the
A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.
