Donald Trump dancing on stage at a Republican convention yesterday (Image: AP)
Donald Trump showed a classified map to passengers on a 2022 flight and kept a file so secret that only six people had access to it, a Democrat politician has claimed. The claims, taken from a newly disclosed Justice Department memo from January 2023, add new details to the now-abandoned investigation into Mr Trump maintaining classified materials at Mar-a-Lago. The memo was cited by prosecutors as they prepared felony charges against the then-former president, which were later dropped following his 2024 election victory.
Representative Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi demanding answers to the allegations. The letter said: “Prosecutors have identified a classified map that we believe may have shown individuals who boarded the plane Mr. Trump took.” It said the investigation indicated that Susie Wills – Mr Trump’s future White House chief of staff, then-CEO of his super PAC – was aboard, and witnessed the incident.
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Democrat Jamie Raskin (Image: Getty)
The memo also revealed that the FBI determined that Mr. Trump retained classified documents “relevant to certain business interests,” prosecutors wrote, suggesting a possible motive for keeping the material. One record was said to be so restricted that normally only six officials would have seen it. Jamie Raskin said: “The revelations raise questions about whether Mr. Trump endangered national security to pursue family business concerns.”
The revelations come from documents provided to Congress this month by the Trump administration’s Justice Department as part of an effort to discredit an earlier investigation led by special counsel Jack Smith. Mr. Raskin accused the department of “cherry-picked” releases that inadvertently included “damaging evidence” about the president’s conduct.
He asked Ms Bondi to reveal the identities of other passengers, the countries shown on the map and any links to Mr Trump’s business dealings, and suggested the disclosure might have breached a protective order in the case.
Mr Trump has long denied wrongdoing, insisting he was entitled to the documents and had declassified them – a claim made without evidence.
Attorney General Pam Bondi (Image: Getty)
The White House rejected the letter as politically motivated. Spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said: “It is pathetic that a Democrat with zero credibility like Jamie Raskin is still clinging to the deranged Jack Smith and his lies in 2026.
“President Trump did nothing wrong, which is why he easily defeated the Biden DOJ’s unprecedented legislative campaign against him and then won nearly 80 million votes in a landslide election victory.”
The Justice Department dismissed the memo’s claims as “salacious and untrue”, arguing that Mr Smith’s team was “desperate to prosecute Mr Biden’s top political rival”.
The classified documents case, once seen as the most serious threat to Mr Trump’s second presidential bid, resulted in him being accused of hoarding top-secret records and obstructing efforts to recover them.
This included separate allegations of Mr Trump showing a classified military map at Bedminster in 2021 and claiming to have “plans to attack” the Pentagon.
The charges were dropped following his victory in November 2024, citing a policy not to convict a sitting president. One of Smith’s reports has been sealed on the orders of U.S. District Judge Eileen Cannon.
Mr Raskin warned: “The evidence shows that Mr Trump endangered national security to advance the interests of the Trump family businesses.”
He urged an end to any “cover-up”. The Justice Department described his claims of violation of the protective order as “baseless”, saying that no grand jury materials had been disclosed.
