Donald Trump's lawyer spoke to CNN on Sunday afternoon blaming the Justice Department for the reason that the former president didn't immediately hand over the documents he had. A new search revealed this week that Trump had a laptop and thumb drives with classified information on them.
With very little pushback during the interview, CNN's Paula Reid noted that the difference between Donald Trump and people like President Joe Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence is that they were happy to cooperate from the beginning when Trump was not.
"I would disagree with that," said the New York lawyer, Timothy Parlatore.
"That he's under investigation?" asked Reid.
"No, not that," said Parlatore. "But that he didn't try to cooperate. From the beginning, he has tried to cooperate. In fact, he had a meeting with the -- with the members of DOJ where he said, 'if there's anything else you need, let us know.' DOJ has taken a position of, you know, really an adversarial position on this, where as much as we want to cooperate with them, they would rather make this into an adversarial fight and try to make it into a criminal case. Had they handled it appropriately from the beginning, agreed to work with us, work towards making sure that we just get the documents and everything is, you know, put back into its place, this all would have been avoided. A lot of what you have here is an appearance of noncompliance, which is created by DOJ in the matter in which they have handled this."
Reid didn't dispute the claim.
The reality is that the National Archives worked with Donald Trump for nearly a year trying to get the documents without any kind of adversarial conflicts. Finally, they came to Mar-a-Lago and retrieved 15 boxes. Trump told his lawyers to tell the Archives that all of the documents had been returned. It was a lie, and Trump knew it wasn't all of the documents because the remainder of the information was found in his personal office, as well as his personal desk drawer.
On Feb. 8, 2022, the National Archives released a statement saying they were still searching for more of Trump's records.
Just two days later, The New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman said in her book that White House staff would sometimes find documents clogging White House toilets and plumbers had to be called. Trump has denied it. Axios posted the photos showing Trump's signature sharpie writing sitting at the bottom of a toilet.
The Archives briefed Congress on Feb. 18, 2022. It was revealed two months later that the Justice Department had now become involved.
Trump's then-lawyer, Evan Corcoran, tried to delay the Archives involving the FBI by sending two letters to them, the court documents revealed. Trump's argument was that he had a "'protective' claim of privilege."
Acting U.S. Archivist Debra Steidel Wall refused to wait. This was by May 10, 2022, when Trump still hadn't handed over the documents.
By May 11, 2022, the chief of counterintelligence and export control at the U.S. Justice Department's National Security Division, Jay Bratt, asked that Trump's document staffer comply with a subpoena that had been issued for the documents. Again, they refused. That was when the FBI moved in to get the documents on June 3, 2022.
CBS News outlined its own timeline revealing the obstruction involved.
So, the idea that Trump claimed "anything else you need," clearly wasn't applicable during all of 2022. Even as Parlatore took over the legal battle, after the FBI search was upheld by an appeals court, it was found that Trump still had more information, including the laptop and thumb drives.
In November, Trump proclaimed he did steal the documents, but he was "transparent" about it.
You can see the interview with Trump's lawyer in the video below or at the link here: