DOJ steps up Mar-a-Lago probe with plans to question team that found classified docs in storage unit
President Donald Trump walks from the west wing of the White House to Marine One in 2017. (Shutterstock.com)
January 10, 2023
The Department of Justice has stepped up its investigation of Donald Trump's handling of classified documents with plans to question individuals who searched his property at Mar-a-Lago at the end of last year.
That search turned up additional documents with classified markings, months after FBI agents seized highly sensitive materials that had been sought by the National Archives, but DOJ is unsatisfied with the broad explanation given by Trump's lawyers at the time, reported The Guardian.
DOJ lawyers persuaded a federal judge to require Trump's lawyers to provide the names of the individuals who retrieved the documents with an intent to directly question them, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The department notified Trump's attorneys in October it suspected the former president still had classified documents at his properties, even after the Aug. 8 search at Mar-a-Lago that turned up hundreds of sensitive government materials, and his legal team eventually agreed to retain an outside firm to conduct the search at Trump Tower, Bedminster golf club, Mar-a-Lago and a storage unit in Florida.
The search of the storage unit, which was conducted by a company described as a known entity to Trump, turned up at least two more documents with classified documents that his lawyers immediately turned over to prosecutors.
The Justice Department then asked U.S. district court judge Beryl Howell to hold Trump's office in contempt of the first subpoena issued in May demanding the return of all such materials, and the department's lawyers then filed a motion to compel the names of the individuals who conducted the search, which DOJ declined to oversee.
Prosecutors seeking judicial intervention shows a newly aggressive turn by special counsel Jack Smith, who has been overseeing Trump investigations for the DOJ since the former president announced his 2024 campaign.
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