In the Mar-a-Lago documents case against former President Donald Trump, the Department of Justice was humiliated on Friday.
The Department of Justice is now bringing up “process crimes” in the course of the investigation and legal processes in a case that was started before the midterm elections and gave rise to accusations that Donald Trump had stolen “nuclear secrets” from the US government while President.
The Washington Post reported on Thursday that the US Justice Department had requested a federal judge hold Trump and his legal counsel in contempt of court for failing to abide by a subpoena demanding him to turn over all classified documents.
An update on that request has been given by The Washington Post: The motion is turned down.
“A federal judge on Friday declined to hold former president Donald Trump’s office in contempt for not fully complying with a May subpoena to return all classified documents in his possession, according to people familiar with the proceedings,” the Post reported.
“U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell told Justice Department lawyers and Trump’s legal team to come to an agreement themselves over what actions or assurances by Trump’s office would satisfy the government, according to these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sealed court proceedings,” the court added.
“The President and his counsel will continue to be transparent and cooperative,” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement to The Washington Post.
The “nuclear secrets” that the FBI raided at the National Archives and Records Administration’s request did not turn up, according to a Washington Post investigation from August. An assessment by agents and prosecutors “found no clear corporate interest in the Mar-a-Lago records,” according to people familiar with the issue, The Post later reported.
“As part of the investigation, federal authorities reviewed the classified documents that were recovered from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and private club, looking to see if the types of information contained in them pointed to any kind of pattern or similarities, according to these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation,” the Post reported.
“That review has not found any apparent business advantage to the types of classified information in Trump’s possession, these people said,” the report continued. “FBI interviews with witnesses so far, they said, also do not point to any nefarious effort by Trump to leverage, sell or use the government secrets. Instead, the former president seemed motivated by a more basic desire not to give up what he believed was his property, these people said. Trump repeatedly said the materials were his, not the government’s — often in profane terms, two of these people said.”
“But they said the evidence collected over a period of months indicates the primary explanation for potentially criminal conduct was Trump’s ego and intransigence,” the report added.
It is obvious that the Department of Justice is attempting to implicate Donald Trump in judicial misdemeanors like “contempt of court” and “obstruction of justice.” The judge recognized the deception on Friday and has once more turned it down.