A group of prosecutors from the Department of Justice (DOJ). believe there is enough evidence to charge former President Donald TrumpA crime relating to his improperly removing government documents from the White House to Mar-a-Lago, his home after his departure from office.
According to BloombergAccording to the report, which cites unnamed sources who have knowledge of the matter and suggests that DOJ prosecutors believe Trump could face obstruction charges at minimum.
The prosecutors have yet to make a formal recommendation to Attorney General Merrick Galrland, who has final say on whether to indict Trump. The sources also told the publication that it’s also unlikely that the former president would be solely charged with obstruction.
The sources also said that charges, if they are to come about, won’t be filed before the midterms, and will likely come after the Christmas holiday.
According to a partially released affidavit obtained from the Mar-a-Lago Search warrant, the FBI said that it had “cause to believe that evidence of obstruction would be found at” the former president’s resort. It’s highly likely that that claim is related to a subpoena that was issued to Trump this past spring, where He was required to return all classified documents that he had received from the White HouseAnd to confirm, through his legal counsels, that he had no other items on the premises.
It was revealed that earlier in the month Trump had directed someone to move documents — including some marked classified — from a storage locker at Mar-a-Lago to his private residence, both before and after the DOJ came to the property to execute their subpoena order. Trump could have been attempting to hide documents and disobey an order directing him to turn all classified documents over. This could be considered obstruction.
The affidavit also indicated that the DOJ was obstruction. Also, he was looking into possible violations of the Espionage Act by Trump. Although it was originally used to prosecute government whistleblowers, antiwar activists, this law is concerned with handling government documents in a way that harms or could damage national security, intentional or not.
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). has tried since the beginning of 2021 — when Trump left the presidency — to recover government documentsIt was aware that he had been keeping the documents in his residence wing at the White House during his tenure. After nearly a year of refusing the documents’ return, the former president finally gave in to the agency’s request to retrieve them in January 2022. However, this was only after Congress threatened to be involved in the matter.
NARA discovered classified materials in the documents and alerted DOJ. This led to the spring subpoena. The FBI searched the estate after evidence emerged that the former President had indeed stored more classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
More than 11,000 documents, including more 300 documents with classified markings, have been recovered. NARA stated that It still believes Trump has some material in its possession, but it is missing some material.At the beginning of 2021.
