On Monday morning, the Department of Justice (DOJ) allegedly met with lawyers for Donald Trump as the probe into the former president’s alleged mishandling of secret documents appeared to be winding down.
At about 10 a.m., attorneys James Trusty, John Rowley, and Lindsey Halligan showed up at the DOJ without saying anything to reporters. There is speculation that indictments are imminent due to this meeting, signaling that special counsel Jack Smith is nearing the end of his investigation.
A meeting with Attorney General Merrick Garland to discuss “the ongoing injustice” of Smith’s twin investigations prompted the attorneys’ attendance, which occurred after Rowley and Trusty wrote to Garland on May 23. Smith was brought in to investigate whether Trump mishandled confidential data and if he sought to reverse the results of the 2020 election. Trump has maintained his innocence throughout all ongoing criminal investigations.
After it was reported last week that Smith’s office had received a recording of Trump discussing a classified Pentagon paper in July 2021, Trump again said he was guilty of nothing. According to the recording, Trump said he wouldn’t show the documents to others because he no longer had the executive privilege to declassify the document.
According to The Guardian, the memo was about a strike on Iran that may occur before Trump leaves office in January 2021. On Thursday, during a campaign rally in Iowa, Trump told Fox News’s Sean Hannity that “everything I did was right,” adding that he complied with the Presidential Records Act “100 percent.”
Trump has compared the investigation into classified documents to others into his alleged behavior, such as the Steele dossier and the supposed conspiracy that allowed him to steal the 2016 election and his recent indictment by the NYC DA’s Office because Trump purportedly wrote a $130,000 “hush money” check to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 campaign.
Joe Biden, like the president, was found to have sensitive materials in his possession, but his defense team claims the vice president has been more cooperative and transparent about where he has hidden the documents.
If only Trump were nicer, his crime wouldn’t have been a crime.
