In a late-night filing, the Justice Department suggested that Trump and his associates likely 'concealed and removed' top secret documents to obstruct their investigation.
late Tuesday, the Department of Justice alleged that the former president and his associates not only failed to turn over highly classified materials he’d taken after leaving office —they concealed the documents and lied to officials who were seeking their return. Investigators “developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the storage room,” the DOJ wrote in the filing, “and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation.
The filing includes some of the most damning evidence of obstruction the government has made public so far, including a photo of classified documents — some gathered by human intelligence sources — recovered from a box in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago office, “commingling” with personal items like framed magazine covers.The 36-page submission came in response to Trump’s call for a special master to be appointed to review documents he claims, dubiously, are subject to executive privilege.
After further investigation suggested the records were still incomplete, the DOJ obtained its search warrant and conducted the raid on the Palm Beach club. “Evidence, thirteen boxes or containers contained documents with classification markings, and in all, over one hundred unique documents with classification markings—that is, more than twice the amount produced on June 3, 2022, in response to the grand jury subpoena—were seized,” according to the Tuesday night filing.
Added the DOJ: “That the FBI, in a matter of hours, recovered twice as many documents with classification markings as the ‘diligent search’ that the former President’s counsel and other representatives had weeks to perform calls into serious question the representations made in the June 3 certification and casts doubt on the extent of cooperation in this matter.”