(Trends Wide) — Two people who found two classified documents at a Donald Trump storage facility in Florida testified before a federal grand jury in Washington, which is charged with examining the former president’s handling of national security records at his residence in Mar-a-Lago, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
The two people who were hired to search four of Trump’s properties last fall were each interviewed for about three hours at different times last week.
They were hired to search Trump’s Bedminster golf club, Trump Tower in New York, an office in Florida and a storage unit in Florida last October, months after the FBI executed a search warrant on Mar-a-Lago. . The extent of the information they provided to the grand jury remains unclear, though they did not decline to answer any questions, one of the sources said.
The development comes at the same time that federal prosecutors are pushing to see files on a laptop belonging to at least one Trump staffer at Mar-a-Lago, according to multiple sources. The special counsel’s office has at times been unwilling to negotiate with defense attorneys over recent subpoenas, leading to tense conversations.
By pressing for access to the computers, investigators are trying to determine if there is an electronic paper trail regarding the classified documents, another source said.
Taken together, the investigative moves underscore that there is ongoing grand jury activity in the Mar-a-Lago documents case, at a time when the Justice Department has more recent investigations into unsecured national security records that they involve President Joe Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence.
The Justice Department declined to comment with Trends Wide, as did a lawyer for Trump.
Federal prosecutors have taken a more aggressive stance in the Trump investigation since last summer, when the Justice Department revealed it had evidence that records the former president had in Florida had been hidden or expunged, raising the need for an investigation. obstructive.
The Biden and Pence situations have been markedly different. While they also point to the carelessness in following up on classified documents, both the Biden and Pence teams have easily returned them to intelligence officials.
The discovery of additional records by the two people Trump’s lawyers hired came in November, long after Trump’s team and the FBI, under a court-approved order, unearthed hundreds of other classified pages in his power after his presidency. At the time, Trump’s lawyers were locked in a dispute with the Justice Department over whether they had properly searched his property and turned over all classified records still in his possession. The Justice Department was not satisfied and its investigation continues.
A court fight in which the Justice Department sought to hold Trump in contempt for failing to comply with a May 2022 subpoena for all records also remains unresolved.
Since investigators sent out that subpoena, Trump’s lawyers have responded three times in writing that they had conducted diligent searches.
Special counsel Jack Smith and the prosecutors who now work for him have used the federal grand jury nearly every week to question witnesses in the Mar-a-Lago investigation.
The witnesses responded last week to all questions put to them, without attempting to assert any confidentiality, one of the sources said.
