Donald Trump may have “stolen” sensitive government documents linked to his own business activities, as well as showed off a classified map to passengers on his plane, according to a senior Democrat citing a memo released by the president’s own Department of Justice.
Rep. Jamie Raskin said the Department of Justice had provided him with a “damning” memo about Trump’s handling of classified documents.
In a letter addressed to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Raskin said the disclosure was part of a cache of “cherry-picked” documents delivered to the House Judiciary Committee in an attempt to smear Special Counsel Jack Smith — who had investigated Trump’s hoarding of classified documents — in order to try to undermine the investigation.
Raskin, the ranking member of the committee, wrote: “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.
“This glimpse into the trove of evidence behind the coverup reveals a President of the United States who may have sold out our nationalsecurity to enrich himself.”
The Democratic lawmaker’s claims have renewed focus on Trump’s classified documents case, in which he was criminally indicted under the Espionage Act in June 2023 for allegedly keeping hundreds of classified materials at his Mar-a-Lago estate after leaving office.
Photos emerged of boxes of papers piled up in a bathroom and an office at Mar-a-Lago.
The case, spearheaded by Smith, was dismissed in July 2024 by a federal judge, who ruled that Smith had been unconstitutionally appointed. The special counsel was appealing that decision until Trump was re-elected to the White House in November of that year, after which the case was dropped. The documents at the center of the case were later returned to Trump.
Trump has consistently denied wrongdoing in the case, calling it a politically motivated "witch hunt" and accusing the DOJ of "selective prosecution"— given former President Joe Biden was also accused of having classified documents at his home, but was never charged.
On Wednesday, the White House tore into Raskin over the letter.
“It’s pathetic that Democrats with zero credibility like Jamie Raskin are still clinging to deranged Jack Smith and his lies in 2026,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told The Independent. “President Trump did nothing wrong, which is why he easily defeated the Biden DOJ’s unprecedented lawfare campaign against him and then won nearly 80 million votes in a landslide election victory.”
In his six-page letter to Bondi, sent on Tuesday, Raskin indicated that the Department of Justice had inadvertently revealed “damning evidence” about Trump’s conduct — evidence Smith had been barred from discussing by a court’s gag order.
“They include a January 13, 2023, memorandum, in which prosecutors wrote that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has determined that the classified documents President Trump retained from the White House ‘were commingled with documents created after Trump left office,’” Raskin wrote. “FBI has also found that certain classified documents President Trump improperly retained ‘would be pertinent to certain business interests.’ DOJ prosecutors further assessed that these ‘classified documents pertinent to his business interests’ established ‘a motive for retaining them.’”
The documents also indicate that, during a 2022 flight to his golf club in New Jersey, Trump may have shown off a classified map to individuals aboard the plane, including Wiles, now his chief of staff. The Justice Department produced a map of the aircraft, but the names of the passengers were redacted.
“It is now clear that DOJ is in possession of evidence that President Trump has already endangered national security to further the interests of Trump family businesses,” the House Democrat concluded. “It is time for you to stop the cover-up and allow the American people to know what secrets he betrayed and how he may have cashed in on them.”
Later in the letter Raskin writes: “The memorandum further specifies that the disclosure of these documents represented ‘an aggravated potential harm to national security.’ The prosecutors also wrote that these were ‘highly sensitive documents—the type of documents that only presidents and officials with the most sensitive authority have.’ One ‘particularly sensitive document wasaccessible by only 6? people, including the president.’”
He says it is not currently clear what the map Trump supposedly showed to others was of, but notes that the president was at that time involved in a business deal with Saudi interests over the LIV golf tournament. Raskin also cites reports that Trump had been talking to “his ghost writer” about possessing Pentagon plans for a potential attack on Iran.
Raskin writes: “If this map is related to our military posture in the Middle East, and it was in fact shown to any foreign official, Saudi or otherwise, that would amount to an unforgiveable betrayal of our men and women in uniform who are currently valiantly fighting in President Trump’s disastrous war against Iran.”
He asked Bondi to provide answers to a series of questions — including about the map — by the end of the month.
Raskin wrote that the “damning” information about Trump had apparently been issued by accident. He wrote: “(Y)ou have, quite amazingly, missed the fact that some of the documents you provided include damning evidence about your boss’s conduct and may well violate the gag order your DOJ and Donald Trump demanded from Judge Aileen Cannon.”
On Wednesday morning, the Department of Justice posted a lengthy response to Raskin’s letter on social media.
“We understand that @RepRaskin, much like Jack Smith, is blinded by hatred of President Trump, however, he needs to get his facts straight—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 department wrote on X.
“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,” the department added. “The accusations Raskin makes are baseless.”
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