Donald Trump Asked His Lawyers About Retrieving ‘My Documents’ Despite Indictment Warning
According to a recent Rolling Stone report, Donald Trump, who is currently being prosecuted on felony charges for hoarding classified data, was adamant that the documents were his to do with as he pleased. Trump, referring to them as "my boxes" and "my documents," persisted in requesting them back from the DOJ despite their warnings that he was likely to be arrested.
Trump's lawyers notified him last month that a federal indictment in the case concerning the sensitive information was on the verge of being brought. The former president reportedly still wanted "[his] documents" and "[his] boxes" back and asked some of his lawyers if they could acquire them from the federal administration, according to a source with firsthand knowledge of the incident and two other people briefed about it.
According to the sources, Trump has had numerous similar conversations over the previous few months. Trump asserted that it was "illegal" that he could no longer obtain the records seized during the Mar-a-Lago raid during these conversations; he insisted that those documents belonged to him. He has also enquired as to whether there are any further legal strategies or court filings that may be used to achieve this that they had not already considered.
The report states that for a significant portion of his post-presidency, Trump has falsely asserted to various advisers and confidants that the highly confidential documents he continued to retain were his. The source with knowledge of the situation said that Trump even said that he will be receiving the documents back in 2025 because he believes he will be elected president once more and recover unrestricted access to the government's most sensitive secrets.
As part of Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation, allegations of deliberate retention of secret documents and obstructing justice were brought against Trump earlier this month. However, Trump and his campaign have persisted that the Presidential Records Act, a law passed after Watergate to narrow presidents’ claims to official documents when they leave office, suggests the exact opposite.
According to two sources familiar with the situation who spoke with Rolling Stone, a number of lawyers, some hired by Trump and others who support him politically, have informed Trump that they believe he is entitled to the return of government documents under a vague section of the Presidential Records Act, specifically section 2205(3), which states that “presidential records of a former President shall be available to such former President or the former President’s designated representative."
However, classification law specialists disagree. According to Brian Greer, an attorney who worked in the CIA's Office of general counsel from 2010 to 2018, “Whatever one might say about his Presidential Records Act argument, there’s no argument that it immunizes him from criminal prosecution under the Espionage Act." He adds that the act does not permit a former president to obstruct justice by refusing to comply with a valid court-issued subpoena for documents, as the special counsel accuses Trump of doing in the indictment.
At a gathering for the Faith and Freedom Coalition last week, Trump asserted, “Whatever documents a president decides to take with him, he has the absolute right to take them. He has the absolute right to keep them, or he can give them back [to the government] if he wants. That’s the law, and it couldn’t be more clear.”
