According to a recent report, Justice Department investigators in the Mar-a-Lago raid case think they have enough proof to accuse former President Donald Trump of obstructing justice. Bloomberg reported “people familiar with the case” as saying that the prosecution team “believes there is adequate evidence” to charge Trump with obstruction, but added that “the route to an actual indictment is far from obvious.”
According to the publication’s sources, it is “also improbable authorities would file merely obstruction charges amid multiple other Trump probes into potential crimes” and that the DOJ committee “has not yet issued a formal recommendation” to Attorney General Merrick Garland. Charges are not likely to be brought or made public before the midterm elections in November, according to the publication.
Early in August, Garland had stated that he had “personally authorized the decision to pursue a search warrant in this instance.”
The latest story reportedly cited unnamed individuals who said that although some FBI agents “favor action,” others “oppose filing such a politically contentious case as Trump explores a 2024 presidential candidacy.”
According to the released search warrant for the historic FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence on August 8, the Justice Department made it apparent right away that the president is under investigation for a potential violation of the Espionage Act and a potential obstruction of justice.
The search warrant, which was made public in the middle of August, referenced 18 U.S. Code 793, which deals with “gathering, transferring, or losing defense information.” Despite its name, many of the law’s provisions have nothing to do with espionage explicitly.
Additionally, the warrant referenced 18 U.S. Codes 2071, which deals with “concealment, removal, or mutilation generally, and 1519, which deals with “destruction, modification, or fabrication of data in Federal investigations and bankruptcy.” The latter is concerned with potential justice-related obstruction.
There is “also probable reason to think that evidence of obstruction would be located at the premises,” according to the FBI affidavit used to support the raid at Mar-a-Lago.
In court documents submitted in late August, the Justice Department claimed that “the government also developed evidence” that “government records were likely concealed and removed from the Storage Room [at Mar-a-Lago] and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation.” This “included evidence” “indicated that boxes previously in the Storage Room were not returned prior to counsel’s review,” the department added.
The FBI “uncovered evidence that the response to the grand jury subpoena was incomplete, that additional classified documents likely remained at Mar-a-Lago, and that efforts had likely been made to obstruct the investigation,” the solicitor general for the DOJ added in a statement to the Supreme Court last week.
The solicitor general argued that the classified documents that had been taken from Mar-a-Lago “are the very subject of the investigation concerning wrongful retention of documents and information relating to the national defense, as well as obstruction of justice” in an effort to counter the Trump team’s unsuccessful attempts to persuade the Supreme Court to intervene in the special master saga.
According to people familiar with the investigation, the witness account, along with security-camera footage, “offers key evidence of Donald Trump’s behavior as investigators sought the return of classified material,” the Washington Post had also reported last week. “A Trump employee has told federal agents about moving boxes of documents at Mar-a-Lago at the specific direction of the former president,” it had stated.
Early in September, Bill Barr, Trump’s former attorney general, said that the Justice Department was gathering information in preparation for future charges against the president.
There are two concerns: Will the government be able to provide a legal argument and will they have sufficient proof to bring charges against anyone, including him? Barr stated in a Fox News interview for America’s Newsroom. That is the first question, and, to be honest, I believe they are almost there.
