WSJ Renew: Trump Lawyer in Mar-a-Lago Appeared Before Jury

Corcoran has been representing Trump since early on in his dealings with the Justice Department over whether classified materials and other White House documents that should have been returned to the National Archives and Records Administration were at the Florida property.

WSJ Renew

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Corcoran went before the grand jury in Washington during the second week of January and said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing a confidential investigation.

Corcoran didn’t immediately return requests for comment. A spokesperson for the special counsel’s office also declined to comment. Trump spokesman Steven Cheung sent a statement broadly denouncing the Justice Department’s probe.

“This is nothing more than a targeted, politically motivated witch hunt against President Trump concocted to try and prevent the American people from returning him to the White House,” Cheung wrote.

WSJ Renew: Archives Release Letters With Biden Attorney Over Secret Papers

On Friday night, ABC News and other news organizations reported that Trump’s lawyers had turned over an empty folder marked classified to federal investigators. It was not immediately clear what the folder contained if anything. The Associated Press, citing an anonymous source, said other classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago had also been handed over. A laptop belonging to a Trump aide was also given to investigators, ABC and the AP reported.

A Trump spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comments on those reports.

Corcoran served on Trump’s legal team through the search of Mar-a-Lago by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents last August and in subsequent legal proceedings. His January grand jury appearance didn’t appear to affect his position — he filed a Jan. 23 letter on Trump’s behalf in another case, the criminal prosecution of former Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro for contempt of Congress.

A former federal prosecutor, Corcoran is one of several lawyers representing the former president in connection with investigations into the Mar-a-Lago documents issue — an inquiry that’s also exploring whether anyone engaged in obstruction — as well as the role that Trump and his allies played in trying to undermine the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Both investigations are under the purview of Special Counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed in November by Attorney General Merrick Garland. Following revelations about classified documents found at a Washington office used by President Joe Biden as well as Biden’s Delaware home, Garland in mid-January appointed a second special counsel, Robert Hur.

Documents previously released through court proceedings show that several months before the Mar-a-Lago search, Corcoran had written to a Justice Department official describing Trump’s cooperation with efforts by the Archives to retrieve administration records and suggesting the department would be on shaky legal footing if it tried to pursue criminal charges in the future.

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Other documents show that Corcoran accepted service of the May 2022 grand jury subpoena for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and was present when a Justice Department official and FBI agents came to the estate in June 2022 to collect more materials.

Following Trump’s unsuccessful effort in court to stop the Justice Department from using the thousands of documents gathered by the FBI during the August search, little has been on the public record about the status of that investigation.

Corcoran was spotted heading into the chambers of US District Chief Judge Beryl Howell in December for a hearing on a grand jury matter, but the court hasn’t released details on his appearance. Media reports had indicated it was related to the Justice Department’s effort to have Trump held in contempt for failing to comply with the grand jury subpoena.