DOJ has more evidence of possible Trump obstruction in classified docs probe: report
The legal hits keep coming against former President Trump.
The Justice Department and FBI found new evidence of possible obstruction by the GOP firebrand tied to their investigation into classified documents recovered at Mar-a-Lago last year, the Washington Post reported Sunday.
After Trump’s advisors received a subpoena in May demanding the records back, the 76-year-old ex-commander-in-chief leafed through some of the boxes of top-secret government documents in an apparent effort to keep certain things in his possession, according to the report, which cited people familiar with the probe.
The FBI then seized 11 sets of classified documents from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate during a raid in August.
Some of the government records from the raid were marked as highly classified.
Investigators also have evidence that indicates Trump told others to mislead government officials in early 2022 – before the May subpoena – when the National Archives and Records Administration was working to get back documents from Trump’s time in the White House, the Washington Post reported.
The latest revelation comes amid a myriad of criminal probes the former president is facing, including the indictment issued last week in Manhattan over hush money paid to pornstar Stormy Daniels.
The classified documents probe is one of two criminal inquiries into the 2024 presidential contender spearheaded by Special Counsel Jack Smith.
The special counsel is also looking into whether Trump tried to block Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election win.
The FBI declined to comment on the report, but Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung blasted the probes in a statement to the Washington Post.
“The witch-hunts against President Trump have no basis in facts or law,” he said.
“The deranged special counsel and the DoJ have now resorted to prosecutorial misconduct by illegally leaking information to corrupt the legal process and weaponize the justice system in order to manipulate public opinion and conduct election interference, because they are clearly losing all across the board.”
The federal probes are only part of Trump’s legal headaches.
The former president is expected to be arraigned in Manhattan court this Tuesday over hush-money payments made on his behalf to Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.
Trump also faces a Georgia inquiry into whether or not he tried to overturn the 2020 election which he lost to President Biden, 80.
With Post wires
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