A subpoena for folder marked ‘Classified Evening Briefing’ was issued to Trump: Report
Donald Trump
A Guardian report says that former US president Donald Trump's lawyers handed in an empty manilla folder marked “Classified Evening Briefing” after a subpoena was issued by the Justice Department for its surrender following the revelation that it was located inside Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort.
The recently appointed special counsel has escalated the inquiry into Trump’s possible unauthorised holding of national security materials and obstruction of justice. The subpoena was reportedly issued last month.
A team of investigators that had been hired by Trump to look for any remaining classified documents last year had seen the folder. It was included in an inventory of Mar-a-Lago and other Trump properties in Florida, New Jersey and New York.
After the report was sent to the Justice Department, a subpoena was issued for the folder. However, the folder was not initially returned since the lawyers thought “Classified Evening Briefing” did not make it classified.
A source told Guardian that the explanation provided by the lawyers regarding the folder was that Trump sometimes kept envelopes, featuring only the “Classified Evening Briefings” in red lettering, as keepsakes after briefings.
When the empty folder was returned in December, along with it a box of presidential schedules marked as classified was also returned. In January, a laptop on to which the contents of the box had been scanned were sent back.
However, the mishandling of those materials is unlikely to be included in the criminal investigation which has so far focused on the documents that the FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago last summer.
The matter shows how the relations between federal prosecutors and Trump's lawyers have been deteriorating. The former are frustrated at Trump’s resistance towards the inquiry and his lawyers, while the latter have complained that the justice department has been unnecessarily heavy-handed at every turn.
(With inputs from agencies)
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