New York
ormer President Donald Trump faced one legal setback after another this week as a judge ruled he must sit for a deposition in New York to answer questions about his business practices, his accounting firm declared his financial statements unreliable, another judge rejected his efforts to dismiss conspiracy lawsuits and the National Archives confirmed that he took classified information to Florida as he left White House.
Whatever happens, said Jeffrey Jacobovitz, a Washington lawyer who has been following the investigations, “I think the weeks will get worse for him.”
In a Friday letter, the National Archives and Records Administration confirmed that classified information was found in 15 boxes of White House records that Trump had brought with him to Mar-a-Lago and turned over last month.
The National Archives “identified items marked as classified national security information within the boxes” and “has been in communication with the Department of Justice,” they wrote in a letter House Committee on Oversight and Reform.
The Archives also confirmed it had received paper records that had been torn up by Trump — some taped together and others left in pieces — and that some White House staff had conducted official business using personal accounts.
While federal law bars the removal of classified documents to unauthorised locations, sitting presidents have broad authority over classification. The Justice Department and FBI have not indicated they will pursue a case.
But David Laufman, the former head of the Justice Department’s counter intelligence section, tweeted, “It’s hard to imagine that @DOJNatSec is not conducting a criminal investigation into Trump’s stash of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.”
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