The Justice Department said in a new court filing that government records were “likely concealed” at Mar-a-Lago in a potential effort to obstruct its federal probe into classified material at former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate.
The Tuesday night court filing indicates that federal investigators are looking into whether Trump’s camp intentionally misled them about the unlawful possession of the secret documents.
The department, in the filing, said Trump representatives told them in June that all White House records at Mar-a-Lago were contained in a storage room on the property.
Trump’s lawyers said “there were no other records stored in any private office space or other location at the Premises and that all available boxes were searched,” according to the filing.
The Justice Department believed that to be untrue and requested a warrant to search the estate. During their Aug. 8 search, the feds found classified documents stashed in drawers in Trump’s home office.
Department investigators “developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the Storage Room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation,” the filing states.
The Tuesday filing provides the most detailed timeline of the interactions between Trump’s team and Justice Department officials ahead of the FBI search. It also includes a photograph of documents labeled “TOP SECRET” with bright yellow borders and redacted pages splayed out on a carpet at Mar-a-Lago.
The Justice Department filed the revealing court papers in response to Trump’s legal team’s request for a special master to review the documents seized by the government from Mar-a-Lago.
US District Judge Aileen Cannon, who will hear arguments on the matter, said Saturday that it was her “preliminary intent” to appoint a special master, but she would give the Justice Department the opportunity to respond to the request first.
With Post wires
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