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(Trends Wide) — Donald Trump’s lawyers turned over material in mid-March in response to a federal subpoena related to a classified US military document described by the former president in a recording in 2021, but were unable to find the document itself, two sources told Trends Wide.
Prosecutors issued the subpoena shortly after questioning a Trump adviser before a federal grand jury about the audio recording of a July 2021 meeting at Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey. In the recording, Trump acknowledges that he kept a classified Pentagon document about a possible attack on Iran.
According to the sources, prosecutors searched “any and every one” of the documents and materials related to Mark Milley, Chairman of Trump’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Iran, including maps or invasion plans. A similar subpoena was sent to at least one other attendee at the meeting, according to another source to Trends Wide.
The sources say that prosecutors made it clear to Trump’s lawyers, after issuing the subpoena, that they specifically wanted the Iran document he spoke of, as well as any material that referenced classified information — such as meeting notes, audio recordings, or copies of the document—that may still be in Trump’s possession.
The failure of Trump’s team to turn over the document underscores the challenges the government has faced in trying to recover classified material Trump took with him when he left the White House and in understanding the movement of government records. that Trump kept.
During the Justice Department’s investigation, prosecutors expressed skepticism about the return of all classified documents. The federal government recovered dozens of documents bearing Trump’s classified trademarks at various points in 2022.
The special counsel’s office complained late last year to a federal judge that they could not be sure that Trump had turned over all of the classified-marked documents in his possession, even after the FBI search at Mar-a- Lake last August, Trends Wide previously reported.
The dispute led to several sealed court proceedings in which prosecutors tried to hold Trump in contempt, but the judge refused at the time and Trump’s team hired two people to search his properties.
The Justice Department declined to comment.
It’s unclear whether the government already has a copy of the Iran document from the boxes that Trump’s legal team returned to the National Archives last year or recovered in a subsequent raid by the FBI.
Trump’s lawyers have said the former president and his staff did not pre-screen materials from the boxes the former president returned to the Archives and were not told what documents were recovered from Mar-a-Lago.
Trump’s lawyers would not have full access to the classified documents seized during the FBI raid and have only recently been able to see the boxes that Trump returned to the Archives in January 2022 with markers in place of the classified documents that had been returned in those cases. boxes.
The document Trump referenced in the recording was created before Milley was appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Trends Wide reported, and Milley was later interviewed by investigators.
Sources have not been able to specify whether Trump was carrying the document in question as he discussed it at the 2021 meeting or simply referring to it.
The recording, first published by Trends Wide, is now in the hands of special counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the Justice Department’s investigation into Trump. In recent months, Smith has focused on the meeting as part of the year-long criminal investigation into the former president’s handling of national security secrets.
The audio in which Trump acknowledges that he had a classified document undermines Trump’s repeated claims that he declassified everything he took with him from the White House when he left office.
Trump said Thursday that he knew nothing about the summer 2021 meeting and again called the Justice Department investigation a “witch hunt” and an attempt to interfere in the 2024 presidential election.
“I don’t know anything about it,” Trump said during a Fox News forum. “I have the right to declassify as president.”
Trump aides and two people working on the autobiography of Mark Meadows, Trump’s former secretary general, attended Bedminster’s meeting with Trump. That autobiography includes an account of what appears to be the same meeting, in which Trump recalls a report “typed up” by Milley containing a plan to attack Iran.
The subpoenas were issued immediately after Trump adviser Margo Martin, who attended the meeting, appeared before the grand jury in the Smith investigation and was questioned about it.
It was also then that Trump’s legal team discovered that prosecutors had the recording.
The Justice Department had access to a version of the recording before Martin’s grand jury appearance in March, according to a source. Martin’s attorney declined to comment.
After receiving Trump’s subpoena, his legal team spoke with his advisers and collected materials in response to the subpoena, including transcripts of recordings made by Trump’s advisers and any other documents that mentioned Milley or Iran, according to the sources.
The legal team was unable to locate the document that Trump mentions in the recording, the sources say, and it is unclear if it was ever returned to the government or where it is now.
Trump’s attorney, Jim Trusty, declined to tell Trends Wide this week if the document was ever returned to the National Archives.
