Former president donald trumpLawyers for have requested a meeting with the Attorney General Merrick Wreath amid reports, the investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents is drawing to a close.
The letter, sent to Trump’s social truth account, criticizes the ongoing investigation: focused on classified file boxes found at his Mar-a-Lago compound in Florida, as unfair and requests a meeting to discuss the investigation of the special counsel of the Department of Justice, Jack Smith. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Smith has nearly finished collecting testimony and evidence in the case, and some in the former president’s orbit are preparing for a possible indictment.
“No President of the United States, in the history of our country, has ever been baselessly investigated in such an outrageous and illegal manner,” attorneys John Rowley and Jim Trusty wrote. “We request a meeting as soon as possible to discuss the ongoing injustice being perpetrated by your special counsel and prosecutors.”
The short letter does not point to any specific accusations against Smith.
The government files investigation is just one of several cases into Trump’s behavior after losing the 2020 presidential election, but it may pose the most serious legal threat to the former president.
the fbi searched his Mar-a-Lago home last August after the National Archives tried for months to recover the missing documents, but the Justice Department reportedly focused on if Trump tried to obstruct government efforts to recover the files. The Washington Post reported last month that federal investigators had gathered evidence that the former president may have gone through boxes of documents after receiving a subpoena to return them.
Trump has oscillated between saying he did nothing wrong and claiming he automatically declassified the files to blast the investigation as another government witch hunt. But during a CNN town hall-style event this month, he seemed to claim that he was allowed to take anything he wanted when he left the White House in January 2021, pointing to what he called the “absolute right” under the Presidential Records Act.
“I took the documents; I have permission to do so,” he said during the live event, later adding that when he left Washington he had “boxes lined up on the sidewalk” and “everyone knew we were keeping those boxes.”
Trump has had several defeats in court in recent months. The former president was charged in April with 34 felonies focused on hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election. Earlier this month, she was also ordered pay $5 million in damages writer E. Jean Carroll for sexual abuse and defamation.
He has criticized those decisions and spent his time on CNN’s town hall. disparaging Carroll as a “kooky job”. She responded Monday, asking a judge to increase the multi-million dollar judgment by a “very substantial amount” for his continued disparagement of her despite the jury’s verdict.