President Donald Trump retained government documents related to his business interests after leaving office, according to an internal memo from the office of former special counsel Jack Smith.
The memo, seen by POLITICO, was transmitted by the Justice Department to the House and Senate Judiciary committees earlier this month. It was changed in response to the Republican-led investigation into Smith’s investigation during the Biden administration into Trump’s alleged misuse of classified documents after leaving office, as well as his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
“The process is very much ongoing, but the FBI has already discovered both – that classified documents were mixed with documents created after Trump left office and that there are classified documents that would be relevant to certain business interests,” the memo, dated January 13, 2023, said.
The second volume of Smith’s report on his team’s investigative findings, which focuses on the classified documents matter, is currently under court-ordered seal. Democrats are pressuring the DOJ to release it in hopes it might reveal damaging information about the president. The new information revealed in this memorandum about Trump’s conduct may increase pressure on the administration to make the full report public.
It could also inform questions from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is scheduled to invite Smith to testify at a public hearing on the Trump investigation in the coming months.
The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, charged in a new letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi on Tuesday that the memo shows Trump “may have sold out our national security to enrich himself.”
Raskin also alleged that the DOJ appeared to have violated a judicial order forcing the seal of the second volume of Smith’s report in turning over certain materials to Congress, including grand jury materials.
A Justice Department spokesperson rejected Raskin’s claims in a statement Wednesday, calling his move a “political stunt.”
The spokesperson said it was not surprising that Smith’s “files contain defamatory and untrue claims about President Trump,” and that the files turned over to Congress did not violate a court order, nor did they disclose relevant grand jury material.
“We understand that Jamie Raskin, like Jack Smith, has been blinded by his hatred of President Trump,” the spokesperson wrote. “However, they need to get their facts straight – this Justice Department is the most transparent in history because of our efforts to expose the Biden administration’s weaponization in full compliance with the law and the court.”
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson also said in a statement that Trump “did nothing wrong” and called Raskin’s actions “pathetic.”
A spokesperson for House Judiciary Democrats pointed out the irony of the Trump administration claiming to be “the most transparent in history” when it was refusing to release Smith’s findings.
A spokesman for House Judiciary Republicans retorted, “Another day, another manufactured outrage from the left.”
The 2023 memorandum sent to Congress also said that Trump retained documents that were so sensitive that only a few people other than the president had access to them, and the fact that he had materials related to his business interests suggests “a motive for retaining them.”
“These new revelations show that Donald Trump stole documents so sensitive that only six people in the entire US government had access to them,” Raskin said in his letter to Bondi. “It’s time for you to stop covering up and let the American people know what secrets he exposed and how he profited from them.”
Gregory Swirnowski contributed to this report.
