Former Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran forced to waive attorney-client privilege in grand jury investigation into classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago
- Evan Corcoran testifies about his private notes with former client, Trump
- The former president is also facing grand jury investigations in Georgia and New York.
- Special counsel Jack Smith claims Trump intentionally misled his lawyers about keeping White House documents at his Florida residence
Donald Trump’s lawyer, Evan Corcoran, appeared Friday before a federal grand jury investigating the former US president’s withholding of classified documents after he left the White House in January 2021.
Corcoran and his attorney Michael Levy entered the federal courthouse in Washington and proceeded to the third floor where the grand jury normally meets.
Special counsel Jack Smith is leading the Justice Department’s investigation into whether Trump improperly took classified documents when he left office and his attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss, which he falsely claims was the result of widespread fraud.
That is one of a series of investigations, including an investigation in Georgia into his attempt to overturn his election loss and an investigation in New York into whether he illegally paid porn star Stormy Daniels shut-up money, which revolve around to Trump as he seeks the Republican nomination. run for president again in 2024.
Evan Corcoran, attorney for former President Donald Trump, arrives to testify before a federal grand jury investigating Trump’s handling of classified documents, at the US District Court in Washington, US, March 24. 2023. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Corcoran’s appearance comes just two days after the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued a sealed judgment apparently compelling him to comply with a lower court order to testify and provide records as part of Smith’s research.
US media, including ABC News, previously reported that Smith’s office was seeking court approval to compel Corcoran’s testimony, citing evidence that Trump intentionally misled his lawyers about his withholding of classified materials at his resort. from Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
Corcoran tried to block the execution of the subpoena, citing attorney-client privilege.
ABC reported that a federal judge ruled that Smith’s team had sufficiently shown that Trump may have misled his lawyers to further a crime and ruled that attorney-client privilege could not be used to protect Corcoran from complying with the grand jury subpoena. .
Corcoran and Christina Bobb, another attorney representing Trump, were involved in talks with the Justice Department last year in the lead up to the FBI’s search of Trump’s Florida property on Aug. 8.
In May 2022, Trump received a grand jury subpoena ordering him to turn over any records with classified marks, and Justice Department and FBI officials met with Trump’s lawyers in June to enforce the subpoena.
At that June meeting, they handed over a single envelope containing 38 documents with classified marks.
In a certification drafted by Corcoran and signed by Bobb, they attest that they had thoroughly searched the facility and found no other records with classification marks.
That claim later turned out to be false, after the FBI discovered about 100 additional classified records among some 13,000 government documents in its Aug. 8 search.
Former US President Donald Trump is under investigation by a special prosecutor over classified documents found at his Florida home in Mar-a-Lago.
Large police presence and protesters at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. The FBI executes a search warrant in a document investigation at Mar-a-Lago on August 8, 2022 in Palm Beach, Florida.
An FBI redacted photograph of classified documents and covers recovered from a dumpster stored on the Florida property of former US President Donald Trump
