Donald Trump could face criminal charges in the federal investigation into his handling of classified documents within weeks, as outlined in a report from Bloomberg. Charges, though, definitely aren’t a sure thing.
Indications simply are that Special Counsel Jack Smith, who has been conducting the probe into the circumstances surrounding those documents, is approaching the end of his investigation. Active subpoenas for either witness testimony or evidentiary material apparently aren’t known, according to the Bloomberg report, though Smith and his team have previously heard from a significant number of individuals including many staff members at Mar-a-Lago, which is Trump’s resort in southern Florida where federal agents conducted a raid in the docs probe late last year. Prosecutors have also heard from Evan Corcoran, a lawyer for Trump who was pushed back into testimony after it was ruled that what’s known as the crime-fraud exception applied to his case. That refers to instances in which attorney-client privilege can be overcome by suspicion of criminal activity.
It’s largely appeared that investigators have focused on Trump himself in their looks at the situation, with media reports talking about accumulating evidence suggesting Trump misrepresented the facts to his legal team. The potential offenses on which the federal investigators have been focusing include acts relating to the actual handling of the documents and possible obstruction, considering the lack of clear cooperation from the former president and his team at times with what authorities have been pursuing. It’s also in this same probe that Trump temporarily obtained the services of a so-called special master, which is a court-appointed third party who was looking at disputes about the legal status of individual documents the government had obtained. Their work was eventually ended before its natural conclusion by court order after prosecutorial challenges.
“Special Counsel Jack Smith is wrapping up his investigation into former president Donald Trump’s refusal to return classified documents after his election defeat and is poised to announce possible criminal charges in the days or weeks after Memorial Day, according to people familiar with the matter,” Bloomberg said. Smith’s 2020 election probe continues. Read more from Bloomberg’s report at this link.
