Prosecutors hand over evidence to Trump defense lawyers in Mar-a-Lago documents case: court filing

Department of Justice prosecutors have handed a cache of evidence to former President Donald Trump’s defense lawyers in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, a new court filing revealed.

The revelation suggests that special counsel Jack Smith could have additional tapes of Trump discussing the classified documents besides the bombshell July 2021 recording of the former president telling book researchers about a classified Iran attack plan in a meeting at his New Jersey golf resort.

The court filing, reported late Wednesday, offers no details of the additional tape or tapes. It refers to “interviews of Defendant Trump conducted by non-government entities, which were recorded with his consent and obtained by the Special Counsel’s Office during the investigation.”

The evidence also includes public statements made by Trump as well as transcripts of testimony given by co-defendant Walt Nauta.

None of the actual information was released to the public.

Prosecutors are required to provide defendants with all evidence they plan to use against them prior to a trial. There will likely be more tranches of disclosures as the case revs up.

The only tape mentioned in Trump’s historic federal indictment was the recording of his meeting with book researchers at his Bedminster resort, in which he allegedly waved a highly classified plan for a hypothetical U.S. attack on Iran.

Trump is caught on the tape saying that the document was classified and telling participants that he could not declassify it because he was no longer president, according to the indictment.

The tape amounts to an admission that Trump knew he wrongfully kept classified documents and that he did not declassify all the documents before leaving office as he has repeatedly claimed, legal analysts say.

Trump has since sought to muddy the waters about the recording, claiming that the supposed Iran attack plan was merely a stack of maps and press clippings in a contentious Fox News interview this week.

He faces a tentative Aug. 14 trial date in the classified documents case, although that date could be pushed back by U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon.

The former president faces 37 counts of mishandling classified documents and obstruction of justice. Nauta, a longtime Trump aide, is charged with helping Trump hide the documents from the feds and even defense lawyers.

In the same Fox News interview, Trump admitted that he defied a May 2022 federal subpoena to return the documents. He claimed he had the right to rummage through boxes of documents for golf gear and other personal items before handing them over, an excuse legal analysts deride as absurd.

Lawyers say Trump is digging a huge hole for himself by continuing to discuss the case in public even though anything he says can be used against him at trial.

With News Wire Services