Trump’s former lawyer, Evan Corcoran forced to give up attorney-client privilege to grand jury

Donald Trump’s attorney Evan Corcoran appeared Friday before a federal grand jury investigating the former US president’s retention of classified documents after he left the White House in January 2021.

Corcoran and his attorney Michael Levy entered the federal courthouse in Washington and went to the third floor where the grand jury usually meets.

Special Counsel Jack Smith is leading the Justice Department’s investigation into whether Trump improperly took classified documents when he left office and his efforts to reverse his 2020 election defeat, which he falsely claims was the was the result of widespread fraud.

That’s one of a series of inquiries, including a Georgia inquiry into his attempt to undo his election defeat and a New York inquiry into whether he illegally paid hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels, who are swirling around Trump as he presses on. is seeking the Republican nomination. to run for president again in 2024.

Corcoran’s appearance comes just two days after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a sealed ruling that appeared to compel him to comply with a lower court order to testify and provide documents as part of the Smith’s research.

US media outlets including ABC News previously reported that Smith’s office was seeking court approval to compel Corcoran’s testimony, citing evidence that Trump deliberately misled his lawyers about keeping secret materials at his resort in Mar. -a-Lago in Florida.

Corcoran sought to block enforcement of the subpoena, citing attorney-client privilege.

ABC reported that a federal judge ruled that Smith’s team had provided sufficient evidence that Trump may have defrauded his lawyers in furtherance of a crime, and determined that attorney-client privilege could not be used to protect Corcoran from complying with the grand jury subpoena.

Corcoran and Christina Bobb, another attorney representing Trump, were both involved in talks with the Justice Department last year leading up to the FBI’s Aug. 8 search of Trump’s Florida property.

In May 2022, Trump received a grand jury subpoena ordering him to turn over all documents with classified markings, and Justice Department and FBI officials met with Trump’s lawyers in June to enforce the subpoena.

At that meeting in June, they handed over a single envelope containing 38 documents with secret markings.

In a certificate prepared by Corcoran and signed by Bobb, they confirmed that they had thoroughly searched the property and found no other documents with classification marks.

That claim was later proven false after the FBI discovered about 100 additional classified documents among some 13,000 government documents during its Aug. 8 search.