Among the classified records taken to Mar-a-Lago by President Trump were documents so sensitive that one had been distributed to just six people, while another set was relevant to his business interests.
The disclosure, made to the House Judiciary Committee as part of its investigation into the probes into Trump, offers new details about the types of records the president took with him to Florida after losing the 2020 election.
The public is still barred from seeing former special counsel Jack Smith’s report surrounding the investigation that prompted him to bring Espionage Act charges against Trump after 300 documents with classified markings were discovered at his Florida estate.
The files shared with Congress include a January 2023 memo of work on Smith’s team. Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) also shared them on Tuesday.
In it, agents are seen discussing the need to secure permission to show the classified documents at trial, arguing that Trump’s business interest in the documents indicates his motive, while the closely held documents show the highly sensitive nature of the materials. The memo does not provide further specifics about the contents of the classified documents.
“Most damning is what these documents, cherry-picked by your own DOJ for disclosure, show about President Trump’s conduct,” Raskin wrote in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, going to quote from the memo from Smith’s team.
The “FBI has also found that certain classified documents President Trump improperly retained ‘would be pertinent to certain business interests.’ DOJ prosecutors further assessed that these ‘classified documents pertinent to his business interests’ established ‘a motive for retaining them,” Raskin wrote.
“The memorandum further specifies that the disclosure of these documents represented ‘an aggravated potential harm to national security.’ The prosecutors also wrote that these were ‘highly sensitive documents—the type of documents that only presidents and officials with the most sensitive authority have.’ One ‘particularly sensitive document was accessible by only 6? people, including the president.’”
At another point in the memo, prosecutors discuss Trump showing a classified map to passengers traveling with him aboard a flight, including his now chief of staff Susie Wiles.
According to the panel’s Democrats, it’s possible the Justice Department disclosure may violate an order from U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, who sided with Trump in barring the release of Smith’s report.
Cannon’s order barred Bondi from sharing the report or “any information or conclusions” from it.
The Justice Department on Wednesday called Raskin “blinded by hatred of President Trump,” and claimed without providing further details that the Smith memo contains “salacious and untrue claims about President Trump.”
“This Department of Justice is the most transparent in history in part because of our efforts to expose the weaponization of the Biden administration in full compliance with the law and the court. Jack Smith’s team was desperate to prosecute Biden’s top political opponent, so it is no surprise that his files contain salacious and untrue claims about President Trump. The accusations Raskin makes are baseless. Judge Cannon’s protective order was not violated,” a DOJ spokesperson wrote, adding that they also did not violate any grand jury secrecy rules.
“As an attorney and law professor, one must assume Raskin understands this, and thus, reveals this letter is nothing more than a cheap political stunt almost as if taking cues from members of the corrupt Jack Smith prosecution team.”
Nonetheless, the files prompted ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) to call on Attorney General Pam Bondi to answer a series of questions about the memo, from providing details about what was depicted on the classified map Trump allegedly showed to passengers to which of Trump’s business interests the documents pertain.
“Without access to Volume II of the Special Counsel’s final report or the investigative files, we do not know what that classified map contained, nor can we determine from this memo the relationship between the classified documents President Trump stole and their pertinence to his ‘business interests,’” Raskin wrote, before referencing golf deals pursued by the Trump family.
“We do know that around the time of this flight to Bedminster, President Trump was entering into partnerships with Saudi-backed LIV Golf and state-linked real estate firm Dar al Arkan.”
In previous reports, Trump was described as having shown off a classified map, telling an aide not to get too close, as they did not have a clearance.
In another instance, Trump is alleged to have shared plans for military action in Iran with those present for a meeting organized to help biographers pen a book on his former chief of staff Mark Meadows.
Raskin argued the military plans regarding Iran must now be seen in a new light.
“If this map is related to our military posture in the Middle East, and it was in fact shown to any foreign official, Saudi or otherwise,” he wrote, “that would amount to an unforgiveable betrayal of our men and women in uniform who are currently valiantly fighting in President Trump’s disastrous war against Iran.”
