Trump classified documents probe is ‘wrapping up’: ex-President’s allies ready for indictment’
The investigation into Donald Trump’s alleged misuse of classified documents after leaving the White House is nearing its end and the ex-president will be charged.
Special Counsel Jack Smith has finished collecting evidence about how confidential presidential files ended up at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, the WSJ reported Tuesday.
The newspaper quoted people familiar with the case as saying allies of the real estate tycoon expect charges to be served.
Trump’s allies told the WSJ they expect the former president to be charged
Justice Department special counsel leading the investigation, Jack Smith, has cast a wide net in interviews, seeking testimony from a long list of former Trump aides
In August 2022, boxes of classified documents were found in Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida residence
But they argue the latest lawsuit will only increase Trump’s popularity with the GOP grassroots and could even aid their campaign-raising efforts.
Smith has conducted interviews with every employee in Trump’s lavish home, dubbed the “winter White House,” during his tenure.
His work examines whether someone was trying to thwart the criminal investigation, or whether Trump was illegally holding documents he should have turned over to authorities.
But it’s unclear whether the top defense attorney has gathered enough evidence for Attorney General Merrick Garland to charge the ex-commander-in-chief with a crime in this case.
Smith is also looking into Trump and his allies’ bid to overturn the 2020 presidential election result.
DailyMail.com has reached out to the Trump 2024 campaign for comment.
The FBI seized 11,000 documents from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida during a court-approved search on Aug. 8, including about 100 marked classified.
Some were classified as top secret, the highest level of classified information.
The department began its investigation after the National Archives, the US agency responsible for preserving government records, tried to persuade Trump to return missing government property and received 15 boxes of classified documents.
Trump has accused the Justice Department of participating in a partisan witch hunt and claims the documents he took were part of his personal records and were released when he left office.
The Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into Trump for holding government records, including some marked as classified, after he left office in January 2021
Donald Trump was sued in a new libel lawsuit Monday after he made a series of disparaging remarks about a woman who claimed he raped her in the 1990s.
Trump accused writer E. Jean Carroll of “hanky panky” in her lawsuit against him
The 76-year-old’s legal woes intensified Monday when E. Jean Carroll, a journalist who claimed to have been raped by Trump, filed a new defamation suit over his comments at a CNN Town Hall event earlier this month.
Trump mocked her “hanky panky” claims, calling her a “goofball” and claiming the judge barred his legal team from submitting evidence that Carroll called her husband a “monkey” and had a cat named “Vagina.”
He repeated the claim that Carroll made another racist comment about her black husband on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday.
Trump denied knowing Carroll. During his videotaped statement, Trump was seen mistaking him for his ex-wife, Marla Maples
Trump alleged that E. Jean Carroll (second from left) called her husband John Johnson (center) a “monkey.” The ex-president is pictured with the couple and his first wife Ivana (right) at a party in the 1980s
“I don’t know E. Jean Carroll, I’ve never met or touched her (except on a celebrity line with her African-American husband whom she disgustingly called the ‘monkey’), I wouldn’t want to know or touch her, I have never abused or raped her or taken her 25 years ago to a dressing room in a busy department store where the doors are CLOSED, she has no idea when, or did anything to her other than deny her fake, fabricated story, which she wrote in a book wrote,” Trump wrote.
“IT NEVER HAPPENED, IS A TOTAL SCAM, UNFAIR PROCESS!”
The writer’s legal team has filed new legal documents in a Manhattan federal court just two weeks after winning $5 million when a jury found Trump liable for sexual assault and libel.
“Trump’s post-verdict defamatory statements demonstrate the depth of his malice toward Carroll, as it is hard to imagine that defamatory behavior could possibly be more motivated by hatred, ill-will or spite,” her attorneys wrote. “This conduct supports very substantial damages.
Trump has consistently denied the allegations, calling them a “complete scam” and “a hoax.”