Global Courant
WASHINGTON — Attorneys for Donald Trump were spotted at the Justice Department on Monday, the same week that the grand jury investigating the former president’s handling of classified documents is expected to reconvene.
NBC News has confirmed that part of Trump’s legal team is at Justice Department headquarters in Washington. Three of Trump’s attorneys — James Trusty, John Rowley and Lindsey Halligan — are at the Justice Department meeting with a group of Justice Department officials, including Attorney General Merrick Garland or Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. The team was first noticed by CBS News.
NBC News reported that the grand jury investigating Trump’s handling of classified documents is expected to convene again this week. The FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in August 2022 and found more than 11,000 government documents, including more than “one hundred unique documents with classification markers,” according to a previous government filing.
An FBI affidavit said the FBI found 184 classified documents in the boxes that Trump returned to the National Archives prior to the August 2022 search, which turned up the additional classified documents.
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the nomination of Special Counsel Jack Smith in November 2022, just after Trump formally launched his campaign for the 2024 Republican nomination. Smith examines both Trump’s handling of classified documents — as potential impediments to that investigation — as well as aspects of the Jan. 6 investigation and effects to “determine the lawful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election or the certification of the Electoral College ballot held on or about Jan. January 2021, as well as all matters that have arisen or could arise directly from this investigation.
Daniel Barnes contributed.
