Trump was warned that FBI could raid Mar-a-Lago months ahead of time, lawyer's notes show
Trump attorney Evan Corcoran saved his recollections in a series of voice memos.ByKatherine Faulders and Mike Levine
September 6, 2023, 2:46 PM
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In May of last year, shortly after the Justice Department issued a subpoena to former President Donald Trump for all classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Trump's then-lead attorney on the matter, Evan Corcoran, warned the former president in person, at Mar-a-Lago, that not only did Trump have to fully comply with the subpoena, but that the FBI might search the estate if he didn't, according to Corcoran's audio notes following the conversation.
Only minutes later, during a pool-side chat away from Trump, Corcoran got his own warning from another Trump attorney: If you push Trump to comply with the subpoena, "he's just going to go ballistic," Corcoran recalled.
Corcoran's recollections, captured in a series of voice memos he made on his phone the next day, help illuminate Trump's alleged efforts to defy a federal grand jury subpoena, and appear to shed more light on his frame of mind when he allegedly launched what prosecutors say was a criminal conspiracy to hide classified documents from both the FBI and Corcoran, his own attorney.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him and has denied any wrongdoing.
The recordings, which have become a key piece of evidence in special counsel Jack Smith's classified documents case against Trump, contain information that was later described in Smith's publicly released indictment and in media reports -- but many of the details in them have never been made public.
ABC News has reviewed copies of transcripts of the recordings, which appear to show the way Trump allegedly deceived his own attorney, and how classified documents, according to prosecutors, ended up at Mar-a-Lago in the first place.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung, responding to the development, told ABC News, "The attorney-client privilege is one of the oldest and most fundamental principles in our legal system, and its primary purpose is to promote the rule of law. Whether attorneys' notes are detailed or not makes no difference -- these notes reflect the legal opinions and thoughts of the lawyer, not the client."
Cheung added that Trump "offered full cooperation with DOJ, and told the key DOJ official, in person, 'Anything you need from us, just let us know.'"
A spokesperson for the special counsel's office declined to comment to ABC News. Corcoran did not immediately return ABC News' request for comment.
'Complying with that subpoena'
When Corcoran joined Trump's legal team in April last year, the FBI had already launched a criminal investigation into Trump's handling of classified information. Nearly 200 classified documents had been found in 15 boxes that Trump reluctantly returned to the National Archives "after months of demands," as the indictment stated.But Justice Department officials believed Trump was holding onto even more classified documents in other boxes at Mar-a-Lago and refusing to return them -- so on May 11, 2022, the Justice Department issued a federal grand jury subpoena demanding the return of any and all classified documents.
Corcoran and another Trump attorney, Jennifer Little, flew to Florida to meet with Trump. "The next step was to speak with the former president about complying with that subpoena," Corcoran recalled in a voice memo the next day.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/timeline-...dling-classified-documents/story?id=101768329
But while sitting together in Trump's office, in front of a Norman Rockwell-style painting depicting Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton and Trump playing poker, Trump, according to Corcoran's notes, wanted to discuss something else first: how he was being unfairly targeted.
As Corcoran later recalled in his recordings, Trump continuously wandered off to topics unrelated to the subpoena -- Hillary Clinton, "the great things" he's done for the country, and his big lead in the polls in the run-up to the 2024 Republican presidential primary race that Trump would officially join in November. But Corcoran and Little "kept returning to the boxes," according to the transcripts.
Corcoran wanted Trump to understand "we were there to discuss responding to the subpoena," Corcoran said in the memos.
