The US Department of Justice is increasing the pressure on Donald Trump in the secret documents affair. The investigators want to interview a lawyer for the ex-president again and raise serious allegations against Trump in their application.
Prosecutors at the US Department of Justice investigating Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents have made serious allegations against the former US President. Investigators have asked a federal judge for permission to re-examine Trump attorney Evan Corcoran, US media and the Associated Press news agency report. In their motion, they referred to an exception that allows attorney-client privilege to be circumvented in cases of crime and fraud.
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“In order to breach attorney-client privilege, prosecutors wrote to the judge alleging that the former president used his attorney to promote a crime or fraud,” CNN said, citing a person familiar with the Justice Department’s request . According to information from CNN and the New York Times, Corcoran was recently questioned in a Washington court about his advice to Trump, but had refused to answer, citing attorney-client privilege.
It’s unclear whether the Justice Department has now presented new evidence of a criminal act and what possible Trump crime Corcoran’s testimony investigators believe could uncover. When prosecutors requested a search warrant for Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, Florida home in August 2021, they justified it on suspicion of obstruction of justice and potential crimes related to classified information.
Corcoran was involved in the delivery of some of the classified documents from Mar-a-Lago last year. He also reportedly helped put together a statement certifying that the ex-president’s team had conducted a “careful search” and found no other classified documents at Trump’s residence. The FBI then searched Mar-a-Lago and found about 100 classification-marked documents that prosecutors believe had not been returned to the National Archives despite requests from Trump and his team.
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The new request for Corcoran’s interrogation “gives the investigation a new, aggressive dimension and underscores the legal danger that Trump is exposed to,” the New York Times commented on the prosecutors’ initiative. And CNN calls it the “most aggressive move yet by Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the investigation.”
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Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
