Weeks after former President Donald Trump requested a meeting with the Department of Justice (DOJ), his attorneys John Rowley, James Trusty, and Lindsey Halligan were seen entering DOJ headquarters on Monday around 10 a.m. and stayed for just under two hours. Photos showing Trump’s lawyers arriving and leaving the meeting emerged on social media. Attorney General Merrick Garland was not part of the meeting, according to reports.
According to two sources familiar with the investigation, Trump’s legal team is frustrated over the handling of attorney-client matters by DOJ officials in recent months. These issues are expected to have been addressed in Monday’s meeting, specifically regarding prosecutors discussing the subject matter in the presence of the grand jury.
Earlier this year, a federal judge ruled that Trump’s attorney, Evan Corcoran, must provide testimony before a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., as part of an investigation into the former president’s retention of documents containing classified markings. Corcoran had previously declined to answer investigators’ questions regarding his conversations with Trump, citing attorney-client privilege. The special counsel’s office sought to question Corcoran about an alleged call with Trump on June 24, 2022, which coincided with investigators’ efforts to obtain documents from Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago and video surveillance tapes of the Florida estate.
The special counsel team led by Jack Smith, appointed by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland last November, made a request to D.C. District Chief Judge Beryl Howell, asking her to reject Evan Corcoran’s claims of attorney-client privilege and compel him to testify against his client, Donald Trump. They argued that the attorney-client communications in question may have been used to facilitate criminal activity. In response, Judge Howell issued a secret order that partially granted the request. She ruled that the “crime-fraud exception” would be applied to Corcoran’s testimony but only on a specific set of questions, according to sources familiar with the matter.
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Former President Trump appealed the ruling and sought to halt Corcoran’s testimony. However, an appeals court upheld Judge Howell’s decision. Judge James Boasberg, who took over as chief judge on the D.C. federal court, had previously ruled that former Vice President Mike Pence must testify before a grand jury in the special counsel’s second investigation, which focuses on Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the January 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol.
A grand jury is set to hear testimony from another witness this week at the federal courthouse in Washington, DC, as part of the investigation into classified documents. Last month, Trump’s attorneys, John Rowley, and James Trusty, sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting the meeting. In the letter, which was posted on Truth Social, Trump’s social media platform, they wrote:
… no President of the United States has ever, in the history of our country, been baselessly investigated in such an outrageous and unlawful fashion.
On Monday, Trump wrote on Truth Social:
HOW CAN DOJ POSSIBLY CHARGE ME, WHO DID NOTHING WRONG, WHEN NO OTHER PRESIDENT’S WERE CHARGED, WHEN JOE BIDEN WON’T BE CHARGED FOR ANYTHING, INCLUDING THE FACT THAT HE HAS 1,850 BOXES, MUCH OF IT CLASSIFIED, AND SOME DATING BACK TO HIS SENATE DAY WHEN EVEN DEMOCRAT SENATORS ARE SHOCKED. ALSO, PRESIDENT CLINTON HAD DOCUMENTS, AND WON IN COURT. CROOKED HILLARY DELETED 33,000 EMAILS, MANY CLASSIFIED, AND WASN’T EVEN CLOSE TO BEING CHARGED! ONLY TRUMP – THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!
Speculation is circulating as to whether the former President will be charged with crimes related to documents seized from Mar-a-Lago.