Trump lawyer James Trusty said Sunday that there are no more classified documents at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
In an interview on “Meet the Press,” Trusty was asked by NBC News’ Chuck Todd whether he can be certain there are no classified documents or copies of documents left in Mar-a-Lago following reports that Trump’s legal team turned over additional materials as well as a laptop to investigators.
“Yeah, sure,” Trusty responded. “And I can tell you the leak about what happened with this additional document or several documents that were found in the thumb drive is absurd.”
Sources had told CNN earlier this year that a Trump aide made copies of classified documents that his lawyers discovered in December in boxes at Mar-a-Lago, before handing the documents to the Justice Department.
“It’s been the same mischaracterization that the media has run with to suggest that President Trump is just sitting on a mountain of documents. It’s not true at all,” Trusty said.
Trusty, a former Justice Department colleague of special counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Trump’s handling of classified documents, slammed the DOJ for what he called a “campaign of leaks.”
Last week, the Washington Post, citing people familiar with the matter, reported the DOJ and FBI have gathered new evidence that suggests possible obstruction by Trump in the documents case.
“There’s been a campaign of leaks from DOJ unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” Trusty said. “I was a prosecutor for 27 years. I spent 17 at this Department of Justice. I don’t recognize it anymore.”
The FBI recovered a trove of top secret and other highly classified documents when it searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in August. Following the incident, classified materials were also found in the possession of President Joe Biden as well as former Vice President Mike Pence.
Garland has appointed separate special counsels to investigate the Trump and Biden documents. He has not appointed a special counsel to review the Pence documents.
Former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr said Sunday that he thinks investigators “probably have some very good evidence” in the probe into the former president’s handling of classified documents.
“He had no claim to those documents, especially the classified documents,” Barr said in an interview on ABC News’ “This Week.” “They belonged to the government. And so, I think he was jerking the government around and they subpoenaed it. And they tried to jawbone him into delivering documents.”
“But the government is investigating the extent to which games were played and there was obstruction in keeping documents from them. And I think that’s a serious potential case,” Barr added.
A federal judge ruled last month that Smith’s office had presented sufficient evidence to establish that Trump committed a crime through his attorneys in the classified documents probe, according to a source briefed on the proceedings.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell of Washington was not ruling on whether Trump was guilty of a crime but made a decision about whether his attorney could be compelled to testify.
As a result, Howell ruled in favor of applying the “crime fraud” exception, which would allow prosecutors to sidestep protections afforded to Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran through attorney-client privilege. Howell also ordered Corcoran to testify before the federal grand jury.
Trump has denied wrongdoing in the case of the classified documents, having claimed last year that he can declassify materials “by thinking about it.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
