Evan Corcoran, a former federal prosecutor and current attorney to former President Donald Trump, may face criminal charges in connection to the ongoing investigation at the Justice Department into Trump’s handling of classified documents from his time in the White House, and that possibility of criminal charges is not just a general assumption.
Insiders in Trump’s circles have, rather, warned Trump of this possibility, reaching their own conclusions to that effect based on info they have available. These details are outlined in a new report from Rolling Stone. Corcoran has spent some time on Trump’s team specifically dealing with the dispute with the federal government over documents Trump had, and he was responsible for drafting a signed statement provided to federal investigators last year falsely claiming everything covered by a subpoena for the materials Trump was harboring was getting returned. Corcoran was also present when Justice Department officials showed up to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort to retrieve some of the documents Trump had. While there, those officials were evidently denied the possibility to look through storage boxes themselves.
“Some of the former president’s lawyers have explicitly told Trump that, based on information they have privately reviewed, they believe the Department of Justice has a strong case against Corcoran, arguing charges — including potentially for obstruction of justice — are “very likely,” the sources said,” according to Rolling Stone. The possibility has also been discussed of Corcoran shouldering much or all of the criminally actionable responsibility for misconduct in the documents dispute, and Trump has been pushed to remove the ex-prosecutor from his legal team, which Donald hasn’t done. On Truth Social this Monday, he promptly began complaining about the possibility of an obstruction charge, which is among what’s possible in the docs case, so it doesn’t seem likely he’ll suddenly be dropping Corcoran.
Corcoran already sat for grand jury testimony, although the matter of his testimony isn’t over. The Justice Department is pushing for a judicial demand for Corcoran to provide further answers, evidently covering what he previously declined to discuss, on the basis of what is known as a crime-fraud exemption to attorney-client privilege. The idea is that certain actions taken in relation to even an apparent crime aren’t covered by the same sort of privileges ordinarily afforded to attorneys for discussions with their clients. The House committee that investigated the Capitol riot pushed for the same principle to be applied to John Eastman, the ex-Trump lawyer, in a dispute over investigators obtaining some of his records, and it was in that dispute that a judge concluded Trump and Eastman likely committed criminal acts. As for Corcoran, there aren’t a lot of details in the public record about the contents of the specific questions he declined to answer in his initial sit-down.
