Donald Trump’s legal team is requesting a meeting with Attorney General Merrick Garland amid new developments in the classified documents probe that could slap the former president with another indictment. The Washington Post, which initially alleged that nuclear secrets were housed at Mar-a-Lago when the FBI ransacked the residence last August, dropped a new update last night: Trump aides had moved boxes of classified materials before FBI agents arrived on scene to enforce a subpoena (via ABC News):
Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers Tuesday wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland to seek a meeting with him to discuss the two ongoing special counsel-led investigations into Trump, amid reports that special counsel Jack Smith is wrapping up one of those investigations. pic.twitter.com/OzwXShMtTJ
— Forbes (@Forbes) May 24, 2023
Former President Donald Trump's legal team has formally requested a meeting with Attorney General Merrick Garland, amid fears from his attorneys that the coming weeks could bring a possible indictment of Trump regarding his alleged efforts to retain materials after leaving office and to obstruct the government's attempts to retrieve them.
The letter, though thin on details, was sent so Trump's lawyers could present arguments that Trump should not be charged in the investigation related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.
The letter asks Garland for a meeting at his earliest convenience to discuss what the attorneys describe as the "ongoing injustice that is being perpetrated" by special counsel Jack Smith and says that no president has been "baselessly investigated" in such an "unlawful fashion."
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The request does not specifically detail what Trump's legal team wants to discuss with the attorney general. Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing associated with his handling of materials bearing classification markings.
We should prepare for the worst. Suppose a Manhattan district attorney can finagle a way to elevate misdemeanor charges whose statute of limitations had expired to felonies to indict Trump. In that case, everything and anything is on the table. The FBI obtained illegal spy warrants on Trump associates, spied on his campaign, and did all this with zero evidence of Russian collusion. No one can be trusted to do the right thing. Even worse, the Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg, who inducted Trump in the Stormy Daniels hush money scheme, used COVID, saying then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s emergency declaration stalled the statute of limitations.
The president can declassify anything; the Supreme Court affirmed this in the 1980s. If Trump is indicted, so should Biden, who left numerous classified materials at multiple locations, including his Delaware home. Federal officials knew Mar-a-Lago, a secure location guarded by the Secret Service, was where the reported missing items were stored. With Biden, at the time, no one knew how many documents he took or where he placed them.
And, of course, the Trump special counsel investigation is like hell on wheels, whereas Biden’s is moving slower than a snail with arthritis, with allegations that it’s being bungled deliberately.
