The Justice Department inadvertently revealed that President Trump took classified documents related to his business interests when he left office, according to a letter from a U.S. Congressman.
Trump once faced 37 criminal counts related to the handling of classified documents. The government had charged that Trump refused repeated requests for the documents, including ignoring a subpoena in May 2022 and going so far as to enlist help from employees in hiding the material.
When Trump was elected president again in 2024, the case was dropped and Special Counsel Jack Smith resigned from his position.
"We have long known that, as he left office in 2021, President Donald Trump stole classified documents, hoarded them in the ballrooms and bathrooms of his Mar-a-Lago clubhouse, defied subpoenas, and obstructed law enforcement. One lingering question has been: why?" Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, wrote in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi Tuesday. Raskin is the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary committee.
Raskin references a trove of documents released this month by the Justice Department that he says were "cherry-picked" to paint former Smith in a bad light. But he wrote that in the department's "frenzied search" to find material against Smith, they "quite amazingly, missed the fact that some of the documents you provided include damning evidence about your boss's conduct."
"These new disclosures suggest that Donald Trump stole documents so sensitive that only six people in the entire U.S. government had access to them, that the documents President Trump stole pertained to his business interests, and that Susie Wiles, then the CEO of Donald Trump's super PAC, witnessed President Trump showing off a classified map to passengers on his private plane," Raskin wrote.
"This glimpse into the trove of evidence behind the coverup reveals a President of the United States who may have sold out our national security to enrich himself," Raskin wrote.
The Department of Justice responded to Raskin, calling his claims "baseless."
"We understand that (Raskin), much like Jack Smith, is blinded by hatred of President Trump, however, he needs to get his facts straight," the DOJ stated. "Jack Smith's team was desperate to prosecute Biden's top political opponent, so it is no surprise that his files contain salacious and untrue claims about President Trump."
"This Department of Justice is the most transparent in history in part because of our efforts to expose the weaponization of the Biden administration in full compliance with the law and the court," the DOJ stated.
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