Justice Dept. Wants to Break Privilege Of Trump Attorney for Investigation

A Baltimore attorney is resisting efforts by the Justice Department to find out what Donald Trump might have told him about classified documents found at the former president’s estate in Florida.

The attorney, M. Evan Corcoran, was questioned recently by a grand jury but he repeatedly invoked attorney-client privilege to avoid answering questions.

Now prosecutors are considering asking a federal judge in Washington, D.C., to intervene to compel Corcoran to divulge information about his work for Trump.

The Rules of Professional Responsibility for attorneys allows an exception to attorney-client privilege only if prosecutors convince a judge the private communications helped to perpetrate a crime. It’s a principle known as the crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege.

The Justice Department has not ruled out the possibility of criminal charges against Trump after he carried highly classified documents out of the White House when he left and stored them at his Mar-A-Lago, Fla., home.

The documents are federal property that must be hidden from public view under a series of protocols. FBI agents found about 300 national defense and other classified documents when they searched Mar-A-Lago in August after obtaining a warrant.

Trump's lawyers are playing a big role in the investigation, both for continuing to represent the former president and as they face suspicions they assisted in a cover-up. Before the FBI raid, the lawyers turned over a folder to the Justice Department containing only about three dozen documents.

Attorney Christina Bobb signed a letter saying a “diligent search” revealed no other classified documents.?

After the FBI found hundreds of other documents, Bobb told investigators Corcoran wrote the letter. She said she signed it at Corcoran’s request because she was acting as custodian of the Mar-A-Lago records.

The Justice Department wants to know what additional information Corcoran might have about why Trump had the records and why they were not all returned to the government despite the attorneys’ statement they had been given back.

For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: [email protected] or phone: 202-479-7240.