As probes intensify, Trump foes see opening
WASHINGTON — An investigation into Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents has intensified in recent weeks, with prosecutors summoning a broad range of witnesses before a federal grand jury and zeroing in on questions of whether the former president or others obstructed government efforts to recover the records.
It remains unclear when the investigation led by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith might end or whether Trump might face charges over documents found at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate. But as probes in Washington and Atlanta proceed, Republican critics of Trump see an opportunity for intensifying legal woes to knock him off his frontrunner mantle in the 2024 presidential race in a way that an earlier indictment in New York failed to do.
The ongoing investigations “are the ones that have the meat,” said Bobbie Kilberg, a longtime Republican donor who has become a vocal Trump critic.
“It’s very, very serious,” she said. “It ought to have a real impact on the American people. And if it doesn’t, all I can do is shake my head in bewilderment.”
A grand jury in the Mara-Lago case has heard testimony over the last few months from numerous Trump associates. Prose- cutors have put before the panel a lawyer who helped respond to Justice Department demands for the doc- uments last year, and have also been interested in Mara-Lago surveillance footage.
At least one witness was asked to testify a second time, suggesting prosecutors may be looking to lock in particular testimony they view as useful, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on con- dition of anonymity.
In a message Friday on his Truth Social platform, Trump accused Smith of “harassing and threatening my people” over the documents investigation, which he called a “hoax.” His lawyers have similarly sought to pre-emptively attack any indictment, telling the House Intelligence Committee in a letter last month that the Justice Department “should be ordered to stand down” from the probe.
Investigators have cast a wide net over the last year, interviewing witnesses about Trump’s handling of clas- sified documents as president and trying to determine whether, more recently, he’s tried to hide any records that were taken to Mar-a-Lago or shown those documents to anyone, people familiar with the matter have said.
Prosecutors have focused on the question of potential obstruction, including the response to a subpoena they issued in May 2022 seeking the return of classified records. Among the witnesses who testified last week was Matthew Calamari Jr., the director of security at the Trump Organization, Trump’s company, according to one of the people.
Calamari’s testimony could be relevant to the case since prosecutors subpoenaed the Trump Organization last year for surveillance footage from the Palm Beach property. Footage they reviewed showed a Trump associate moving boxes of documents out of a storage room after the subpoena was issued. Other media organizations reported that Calamari’s father, also named Matthew Calamari, a Trump organization executive vice president, testified last week as well.