3-judge panel rules against attorney for ex-president
Lawyer told to give documents sought in Mar-a-Lago probe
A federal appeals court on Wednesday directed a lawyer for Donald Trump to turn over to prosecutors documents in the investigation into the former president’s retention of classified documents at his Florida estate.
The order is reflected in a brief notice by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The case is sealed, and none of the parties in the dispute are mentioned by name.
But the details appear to correspond with a closed-door fight before a lower court judge over whether M. Evan Corcoran could be forced to provide documents or give grand jury testimony in the Justice Department special counsel probe into whether Trump mishandled top-secret information.
Last Friday, Beryl Howell, the outgoing chief judge of the U.S. District Court, directed Corcoran to answer additional questions before the grand jury. He had appeared weeks earlier before the federal grand jury investigating the Mar-a-Lago matter, but had invoked attorney-client privilege to avoid answering certain questions.
Though attorney-client privilege shields lawyers from being forced to share details of their conversations with clients before prosecutors, the Justice Department can get around that if it can convince a judge that a lawyer’s services were used by a client in furtherance of a crime — a principle known in the law as the crime-fraud exception.
Howell ruled in the Justice Department’s favor shortly before stepping aside as chief judge, according to a person familiar with the matter. That ruling was subsequently appealed, and the court records show the dispute before the federal appeals panel concerned an order that was issued last Friday by Howell.
It remained unclear, however, what crime Howell believes might have been committed — or who might have committed it.
ABC News reported Tuesday that in her decision last week, Howell said that prosecutors under the direction of special counsel Jack Smith had produced “sufficient” evidence to show that Trump had “intentionally concealed” the existence of additional classified documents from Corcoran.
Trump’s campaign quickly shot back, issuing a statement, saying, “Shame on Fake News ABC for broadcasting ILLEGALLY LEAKED false allegations from a Never Trump, now former chief judge, against the Trump legal team.”
The three-judge panel that issued the decision include Cornelia Pillard, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, and J. Michelle Childs and Florence Pan, both appointees of President Joe Biden.
A lawyer for Corcoran did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment Wednesday, and a lawyer for Trump declined to comment on the sealed order.
Corcoran is regarded as relevant to the investigation in part because last year he drafted a statement to the Justice Department asserting that a “diligent search” for classified documents had been conducted at Mar-a-Lago in response to a subpoena. Months later, though, FBI agents searched the home with a warrant and found roughly 100 additional documents with classified markings.
Among the subjects that the Justice Department has been examining since last year is whether Trump or his associates obstructed justice by failing to comply with repeated demands to return a trove of government materials he took with him from the White House upon leaving office, including hundreds of documents with classified markings.
In May, federal prosecutors issued a subpoena for any classified documents still in Trump’s possession — a move taken after he voluntarily handed over an initial batch of records to the National Archives that turned out to include almost 200 classified documents.
In August, FBI agents armed with a warrant searched Mar-a-Lago. The search yielded three classified documents in desks in Trump’s office, and more than 100 documents with classification markings, including some at the most restrictive levels, in 13 boxes or containers in the residence.
About three weeks after Corcoran’s meeting with investigators in June, federal prosecutors issued another subpoena — this one for surveillance footage from a camera near a storage room at Mar-a-Lago. According to a person familiar with the matter, one of the subjects Smith’s office wants Corcoran to testify about is a phone call he had with Trump around the time that subpoena was issued.