Trump Lawyers Visit Justice Dept. as Classified Documents Inquiry Nears End

Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump went to the Justice Department on Monday, two weeks after requesting a meeting with Attorney General Merrick B. Garland to discuss their concerns about the special counsel investigations into Mr. Trump’s conduct, according to two people familiar with the matter.

It was unclear who the lawyers met with — a person familiar with the situation said it was neither Mr. Garland nor Lisa O. Monaco, the deputy attorney general — or what precise subjects they discussed. But the visit came as the former president’s legal team concluded that prosecutors in the special counsel’s office were approaching the end of their inquiry into Mr. Trump’s handling of classified materials and were nearing a decision about whether charges should be filed, the people said.

The lawyers — James Trusty, John Rowley and Lindsay Halligan — left the Justice Department after nearly two hours. They declined to speak to reporters.

Tim Parlatore, a lawyer who resigned last month from representing Mr. Trump, said that the former president’s legal team has harbored worries for some time about how prosecutors working for the special counsel, Jack Smith, have conducted the classified document inquiry.

“I’ve long had concerns about the manner in which D.O.J. personnel conducted this investigation,” Mr. Parlatore said. “Regardless of what the evidence shows, if your prosecution team has engaged in misconduct, that’s a relevant factor to consider in making any charging decisions, particularly in a case with significant political magnitude.”

Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mr. Smith, declined to comment.

In a one-page letter to Mr. Garland, which Mr. Trump posted on his Truth Social account on May 23, the lawyers did not cite any specific complaints by his legal team, but instead broadly asserted that Mr. Trump had been treated unfairly by the Justice Department through the investigations led by Mr. Smith. Along with the classified documents case, prosecutors under Mr. Smith are also scrutinizing efforts by Mr. Trump and his aides to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

The letter to Mr. Garland was an abbreviated version of a longer one that contained a more detail account of the concerns by Mr. Trump’s lawyers, according to two people familiar with the matter. Those included the ways in which grand juries have been used in the special counsel’s investigations and attempts to strong-arm defense lawyers involved in the cases, the people said.

The legal team’s visit to the Justice Department came amid indications that Mr. Smith is approaching the end of his investigation into the documents case and could soon make a decision about whether to seek charges. The status of his other line of inquiry, into Mr. Trump’s efforts to reverse his election loss and how they contributed to the assault on the Capitol by his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, remains less clear.

The initial letter to Mr. Garland was directly confrontational, accusing officials at the Justice Department of showing favoritism to President Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, who is under criminal investigation by the department.

By sending the letter, Mr. Trump was relying on a frequently used playbook, in which he suggests a judge or a prosecutor is treating him unfairly by the act of investigating him.

Under Justice Department regulations, Mr. Garland would play only a limited role in whether Mr. Smith decides to bring charges against Mr. Trump.

An attorney general can overrule a special counsel in a specific circumstance: If Mr. Garland were to determine that the prosecutor’s action would be “so inappropriate or unwarranted under established departmental practices that it should not be pursued.” Mr. Garland must also disclose that to Congress and explain any such intervention when the special counsel’s inquiry ends.

William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting.