'It's like the game of Clue': MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace tries to piece together classified documents mystery
Bombshell reporting by the Guardian that revealed Donald Trump's former attorney, Evan Corcoran, was repeatedly "steered away" from classified documents by Trump's aides were at the center of discussion on MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace show Tuesday.
Guardian reporter Hugo Lowell revealed Corcoran was tasked with helping the former president find classified documents at Mar-a-Lago to comply with a Justice Department subpoena, but the aides diverted him away from Trump's office, saying the papers were in a storage room.
In the end, many classified documents were found in the office.
"[Corcoran] recounted that several Trump aides had told him to search the storage room because that was where all the materials that had been brought from the White House at the end of Trump’s presidency ended up being deposited," reported Lowell.
"Corcoran found 38 classified documents in the storage room. He then asked whether he should search anywhere else but was steered away, he told associates. Corcoran never searched Trump’s office and told prosecutors that the 38 papers were the extent of the material at Mar-a-Lago."
The mystery that Wallace's guests tried to get to the bottom of was, who was it who steered Corcoran away from them?
"It's like the game of Clue," she said, "where we are out of other characters. Who would have lied to Evan Corcoran?"
Wallace spoke with Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig, who had previously been on the show to discuss Trump's "long history of mishandling classified documents."
"When you separate the things in the boxes, it's at the heart of the classified materials case, and the movement and relocation and obfuscation about the location of the boxes and their contents is at the heart of the obstruction case," Wallace said.
She read the Justice Department filing that specifically cited Corcoran being told the documents were in "one location, a storage room at the premises."
Wallace compared it to a game of Clue, with characters aiming to mislead Corcoran from finding the truth.
"There are a lot of lawyers in town who say they know how they would have done it if they had to search for classified records to comply with an FBI subpoena, and the way to do that was to ask their client where are all the possible places the materials could be?" said Leonnig.
"It's not clear if Corcoran had that direct conversation with Donald Trump, although it's possible. I think I'd like to flip this on its head a little bit and say it's been clear for many, many months that Jack Smith is working towards making some charging decisions and is likely going to bring charges."
She cited two things that Smith must establish: Firstly, if Trump worked indirectly or directly to keep the government from getting the records, and secondly that he knew what he was doing and knew classified materials were in the collection.
"The two things are critical to bringing the kind of charges that are being considered now and mentioned in government pleadings," Leonnig continued. "And Evan Corcoran — what is it Evan Corcoran was told? Sources have told to us over and over again he was consistently advised by all staff to Donald Trump that the only place records were kept that had been shipped from the White House, and the only place where records that might have classification markings could be, was the same place. That storage closet, inside a larger storage room, where other items like vodka and pastry dough were kept.
"But in that closet was where those documents could be. So, who told Evan Corcoran that? Most lawyers say I would have asked my client, 'where else do I look?' We don't know that Donald Trump directly told Evan Corcoran this, but Jack Smith is piecing together who told Evan Corcoran and who told those people. Many, many staff advised Corcoran that's the only place you need to look."
The Post also reported that Trump and his aides had a dress rehearsal for moving the boxes of documents in May 2022.
Wallace played clips of Trump telling Sean Hannity and Kaitlan Collins that he had the right to take documents from the White House so he could look through them and show them to whoever he wanted.
"There's no denial," Wallace said. "His defense is he had the right to do it."
Former federal prosecutor Harry Litman stepped into Wallace's debate and questioned, "Who could possibly issue the ultimate orders that would make (Trump's personal aide) Walt Nauta or Corcoran look in the storage room? I think there's only one person here when a subpoena has been received in response to who would take it on their shoulders."
Litman said that it's clear Corcoran was likely asked in the grand jury who told him that the documents were only in one place. He added he thinks the grand jury would still be sitting if that question hadn''t been answered.
See the full conversation in the video at this link.
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