Donald Trump and two of his lawyers, Evan Corcoran and Christina Bobb, face possible criminal charges of obstruction of justice in a government investigation for having "hidden" the secret documents that the FBI finally found in the former president's mansion in Florida, Mar -a-Lago, on August 8. The possible accusation is suggested in a forceful report from the Attorney General's Office and Department of Justice of the United States in response to the last legal maneuver of the leader and his team: the request, to the federal judge that deals with the case, the appointment of a independent expert to oversee the review of such documents and ensure that those that are personal or contain information protected by the attorney-client relationship are excluded.
The Prosecutor's Office alludes in its brief to a "probable obstruction" through the "concealment and extraction of government records", records that would have been taken from a Mar-a-Lago storage room to take them to a Trump office in the city itself. House. Such obstruction would constitute a crime that would be aggravated by the fact that the documents in question, which the former president had illegally taken from the White House and later concealed part of them from those responsible for the corresponding investigation, contained highly secret and compromising information. for spies and intelligence sources of the nation.
Although the "obstruction" had already been cited in the search warrant of August 8, along with possible crimes of destruction of official documents and against the Espionage Law, it is in the report that the Prosecutor's Office has just issued where the accusation is developed. and explained in detail for the first time.
Trump and his lawyers would have perpetrated the crime by lying to the Department of Justice and the FBI when, in writing and orally, they assured them that in previous deliveries they had already returned all the documents that the former president had taken from the White House. One of these lies was materialized by the lawyers when on June 3, in a previously arranged appointment at Mar-a-Lago, they handed three federal agents and a prosecutor an envelope containing 38 classified documents, including five marked as confidential, 16 as secret and 17 top secret.
Upon delivery, the lawyers ensured that there were no more secret papers left in Trump's house. But soon the investigators learned, through witnesses, that this was not true. And on August 8 they found there, both in the storage room and in Trump's office, "36 pieces of evidence with more than 100 classified records."
The Prosecutor's Office accompanied this story with a photo of the material found, including the covers of confidential, secret and "top secret" documents.
The indication by the Public Ministry of crimes attributable to Trump and the two aforementioned lawyers does not imply that the prosecutor will actually present charges. According to all the experts, it is not ruled out that the department limits the accusation to lawyers or even fails to formulate any accusation and thus avoid what would be the first and very tricky indictment of a former president of the country.
At the moment, the Trump team defended this Thursday, in a hearing before federal judge Aileen Cannon, its request that an independent expert be appointed to supervise the review of the documents, despite the fact that the FBI has already completed its own review. . The request, supposedly intended to guarantee the exclusion of private papers or those protected by secrecy in the relationship with lawyers, seems to seek a delay in the process. The ideal thing for Trump would be to delay it until a change of government... and of the attorney general of the United States.
The Department of Justice opposed the expert's request, considering his intervention unnecessary and unfounded. Judge Cannon, nominated for the position by Trump in May 2020, indicated before yesterday's hearing that she had the "preliminary intention" of agreeing to the conservative leader's claims but she wanted to listen to both parties. The session concluded last night, without the magistrate making her decision public. However, Cannon again showed understanding for the former president's request when, at the end of the hearing, he asked the representative of the State Department and Attorney General's Office: "Ultimately, what harm does it do to appoint a special expert to review these materials, beyond delaying the investigation?"
