Report: Trump’s Lawyer Revealed Some Unfortunate Things for Trump in Classified-Docs Casehttps://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/05/donald-trump-evan-corcoran-documents-investigationTrump Lawyer Wasn’t Allowed to Search for Classified Documents in Mar-a-Lago OfficeEvan Corcoran was stopped by someone from searching the exact place where many of Trump’s classified documents were kept.
Donald Trump’s lawyer says he was prevented from searching for classified documents in the former president’s office at Mar-a-Lago, where the FBI later found the most sensitive materials kept at the resort.
Evan Corcoran found 38 classified documents in the estate storage room last June following a Department of Justice subpoena, and he told the department that that was all there was to be found. The FBI raided Mar-a-Lago two months later and seized 101 additional classified documents, including from Trump’s office. The documents found in the office were some of the most highly classified of the entire batch.
Corcoran told associates that several Trump aides told him all materials brought from the White House after Trump left were kept in the storage room, so he only needed to search there, The Guardian reported Tuesday. Corcoran said he asked whether he should search the office too, but was sent away from the room and never allowed to search it.
Corcoran did not specify who steered him away from the office, whether it was Trump himself or an aide.
U.S. Judge Beryl Howell ordered Corcoran to comply with a grand jury subpoena for testimony on six different lines of inquiry. She also ordered him to hand over records of Trump’s alleged “criminal scheme,” including handwritten notes, invoices, and transcriptions of personal audio recordings.
Some of those notes revealed that Corcoran had warned Trump about needing to comply with the Justice Department’s subpoenas. The notes reveal that Trump and his valet, Walt Nauta, knew exactly where and when Corcoran was planning to search for the documents at Mar-a-Lago. Nauta had previously testified that Trump asked him to move boxes out of the storage room both before and after the subpoena was issued.
According to Corcoran’s notes, Nauta had offered to help him look through the boxes in the storage room, which Corcoran declined. But Corcoran took breaks during the multiday search, leaving the storage room unattended multiple times. The Guardian reported that it is possible prosecutors are investigating whether Nauta knew exactly what was in the boxes he was moving.
Bombshell reporting by the Guardian that revealed Donald Trump's former attorney, Evan Corcoran, was repeatedly "steered away" from classified documents by Trump's aides were at the center of discussion on MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace show Tuesday.
Guardian reporter Hugo Lowell revealed Corcoran was tasked with helping the former president find classified documents at Mar-a-Lago to comply with a Justice Department subpoena, but the aides diverted him away from Trump's office, saying the papers were in a storage room.
In the end, many classified documents were found in the office.
"[Corcoran] recounted that several Trump aides had told him to search the storage room because that was where all the materials that had been brought from the White House at the end of Trump’s presidency ended up being deposited," reported Lowell.
"Corcoran found 38 classified documents in the storage room. He then asked whether he should search anywhere else but was steered away, he told associates. Corcoran never searched Trump’s office and told prosecutors that the 38 papers were the extent of the material at Mar-a-Lago."
The mystery that Wallace's guests tried to get to the bottom of was, who was it who steered Corcoran away from them?
"It's like the game of Clue," she said, "where we are out of other characters. Who would have lied to Evan Corcoran?"
Wallace spoke with Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig, who had previously been on the show to discuss Trump's "long history of mishandling classified documents."
"When you separate the things in the boxes, it's at the heart of the classified materials case, and the movement and relocation and obfuscation about the location of the boxes and their contents is at the heart of the obstruction case," Wallace said.
She read the Justice Department filing that specifically cited Corcoran being told the documents were in "one location, a storage room at the premises."
Wallace compared it to a game of Clue, with characters aiming to mislead Corcoran from finding the truth.
"There are a lot of lawyers in town who say they know how they would have done it if they had to search for classified records to comply with an FBI subpoena, and the way to do that was to ask their client where are all the possible places the materials could be?" said Leonnig.
"It's not clear if Corcoran had that direct conversation with Donald Trump, although it's possible. I think I'd like to flip this on its head a little bit and say it's been clear for many, many months that Jack Smith is working towards making some charging decisions and is likely going to bring charges."
She cited two things that Smith must establish: Firstly, if Trump worked indirectly or directly to keep the government from getting the records, and secondly that he knew what he was doing and knew classified materials were in the collection.
"The two things are critical to bringing the kind of charges that are being considered now and mentioned in government pleadings," Leonnig continued. "And Evan Corcoran — what is it Evan Corcoran was told? Sources have told to us over and over again he was consistently advised by all staff to Donald Trump that the only place records were kept that had been shipped from the White House, and the only place where records that might have classification markings could be, was the same place. That storage closet, inside a larger storage room, where other items like vodka and pastry dough were kept.
"But in that closet was where those documents could be. So, who told Evan Corcoran that? Most lawyers say I would have asked my client, 'where else do I look?' We don't know that Donald Trump directly told Evan Corcoran this, but Jack Smith is piecing together who told Evan Corcoran and who told those people. Many, many staff advised Corcoran that's the only place you need to look."
The Post also reported that Trump and his aides had a dress rehearsal for moving the boxes of documents in May 2022.
Wallace played clips of Trump telling Sean Hannity and Kaitlan Collins that he had the right to take documents from the White House so he could look through them and show them to whoever he wanted.
"There's no denial," Wallace said. "His defense is he had the right to do it."
Former federal prosecutor Harry Litman stepped into Wallace's debate and questioned, "Who could possibly issue the ultimate orders that would make (Trump's personal aide) Walt Nauta or Corcoran look in the storage room, I think there's only one person here when a subpoena has been received in response to who would take it on their shoulders."
Litman said that it's clear Corcoran was likely asked in the grand jury who told him that the documents were only in one place. He added he thinks the grand jury would still be sitting if that question hadn''t been answered.
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