Former President Donald Trump’s attorneys found more classified documents in his bedroom at Mar-a-Lago, months after the FBI conducted a raid at the Florida club, according to newly unsealed court documents.
The findings were cited in an 87-page opinion by U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell last year, who oversaw a Washington D.C. grand jury in the matter. The FBI raided Trump’s Florida residence in August 2022, after the National Archives had attempted for months to see boxes of classified material returned. Trump’s behavior is the subject of a 40-count federal indictment.
Howell cited the finding of additional classified documents in the opinion, where she ruled special counsel Jack Smith’s team could question Trump attorney Evan Corcoran. Such topics would usually be shielded by attorney-client privilege, Politico notes, but the judge said prosecutors had demonstrated Trump instructed his lawyer to tell the government all of the classified material in his possession had been returned.
“A representation,” Howell wrote, “that the former president … knew to be wrong.”
“More classified-marked documents still were uncovered in November 2022 in a leased storage unit, in December 2022 in the Office at Mar-a-Lago, and apparently sometime thereafter in the former president’s own bedroom at Mar-a-Lago,” she wrote.
“Notably, no excuse is provided as to how the former president could miss the classified-marked documents found in his own bedroom at Mar-a-Lago.”
Trump’s attorneys eventually provided the records found in his bedroom to the FBI in January 2023.
The opinion was one of several related to the D.C. grand jury unsealed this week by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida, who is overseeing the classified documents case. Cannon has effectively slow-walked the proceedings to the frustration of Smith and his team, and a trial is not expected to begin before late summer at the earliest.
Trump’s attorneys are attempting to see the case dismissed for “prosecutorial misconduct,” and the opinions were unsealed as part of that effort. Cannon is set to hold a hearing on Wednesday, although she still has several other motions before her that are waiting for a ruling.
Trump has been indicted on dozens federal charges over his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House. Prosecutors have alleged he intentionally rebuffed efforts to return them after his presidency and obstructed federal investigators. Two of his aides have also been charged in the case.
The former president has pleaded not guilty on all counts and attacked the case as a political witch hunt, a familiar refrain for the other three criminal indictments he faces. He is currently on trial in New York on charges he falsified business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment to the porn star Stormy Daniels.