Trump lawyers ask to meet with DOJ as investigation into classified documents draws to a close

Lawyers for former President Donald Trump have requested a meeting with Attorney General Merrick Garland as the investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents draws to a close.

The letter, posted on Trump’s Truth Social account, criticizes the ongoing investigation – centered on boxes of classified records found at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida – as unfair and calls for a meeting to discuss the investigation by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith. The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that Smith is almost done collecting testimony and evidence in the case, and some in the former president’s orbit are preparing for a possible indictment.

“No President of the United States has ever, in the history of our country, been wrongfully investigated in such an outrageous and unlawful manner,” wrote attorneys John Rowley and Jim Trusty. “We request a meeting as soon as possible to discuss the continuing injustice perpetrated by your special advocate and his prosecutors.”

The brief letter makes no specific allegations against Smith.

The government records investigation is just one of many about Trump’s behavior following his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, but it could pose the most serious legal threat to the former president.

The FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago home last August after the National Archives tried for months to recover the missing documents, but the Justice Department is reportedly investigating whether Trump tried to obstruct the effort. from the government to recover the files. The Washington Post reported last month that federal investigators had gathered evidence the former president may have sifted through boxes of documents after receiving a subpoena to return them.

Trump vacillated between saying he did nothing wrong and claiming he automatically declassified the files to excoriate the investigation as another government witch hunt. But during a town hall-style event on CNN this month, he appeared to claim he was allowed to take whatever he wanted when he left the White House in January 2021, underscoring what he called the “absolute right” under the Presidential Records Act.

“I took the documents; I’m allowed to,” he said during the live event, later adding that when he left Washington he had “boxes lined up on the sidewalk” and “everyone knew we let’s take these boxes.

Trump has suffered several defeats in court in recent months. The former president was charged in April with 34 counts centering on silent money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election. Earlier this month he was also ordered to pay $5 million in damages to writer E. Jean Carroll for sexual abuse and defamation.

He excoriated those decisions and spent his time at CNN town hall bashing Carroll as a “nut job.” She responded on Monday, asking a judge to increase the multimillion-dollar judgment by a “very substantial amount” for his continued disparagement of her despite the jury’s verdict.