A former senior White House official was interviewed earlier this year by special prosecutors investigating the handling of classified materials by former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, the CNN .
The former career official, tasked with advising the Trump and Obama administrations in the process of declassifying these documents, is the only known witness to be interviewed by both teams of prosecutors investigating Trump and Biden.
During these volunteer interviews, the former employee told CNN that there was a distinct difference in the line of questioning by prosecutors in the two investigations.
While prosecutors in the Trump case aggressively focused on any first-hand interactions with the former president, including conversations about how to properly declassify documents, prosecutors in the Biden case were more concerned with the mechanics of packing and moving boxes to Biden’s home. in Delaware than his time as Vice President came to an end.
“You wouldn’t expect it to match the intensity, and it didn’t,” the former official said, comparing the interview with Biden investigators to discussions with prosecutors in the Trump investigation.
speaking to CNN On condition of anonymity, the former official said he told federal prosecutors that Trump knew the proper process for declassifying documents and followed it correctly at times while in office.
The interview with the former official, which has not previously been reported, is the latest indication that prosecutors are seeking evidence that suggests Trump understood the document declassification process. That could undermine Trump’s claims that he automatically declassified everything he took with him to Mar-a-Lago.
The Justice Department recently informed Trump’s legal team that he is a target in the investigation of classified documents, sources familiar with the matter told CNN a sign that prosecutors may be getting closer to indicting the former president.
“Get Your Downgrading Tools”
The former official described working with Trump and his top aides to properly declassify certain documents, including a 2018 congressional memo related to the Russia investigation.
The former official reminded prosecutors how then-National Security Council counsel John Eisenberg met with Trump in the Oval Office to discuss declassifying the memo.
As he exited the Oval Office, Eisenberg instructed the former employee to “pick up your declassification tools.”
The former employee then met with White House lawyers in a nearby office, handwriting the memo for disqualification and release based on Eisenberg’s direction.
During the interview with prosecutors, the former official provided names of former Trump employees who spoke directly with the former president about the declassification process during his tenure.
These include Eisenberg, former White House Counsel Don McGahn and former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly.
Eisenberg, who was listed as one of the few keepers of Trump’s presidential records at the time he left office, declined to comment when asked about his role in the declassification of the 2018 memo and whether he has been contacted by the special counsel’s team. McGahn did not respond to requests for comment.
evidence
A CNN first reported last month that the National Archives was preparing to hand over 16 additional records to Special Counsel Jack Smith that show Trump and his top advisers were aware of the correct declassification process while he was president.
Last week, the CNN It was also the first to report that federal prosecutors obtained an audio recording in which Trump acknowledges holding a classified Pentagon document about a possible attack on Iran.
It was only after obtaining the audio that prosecutors issued a subpoena for related materials. Sources previously told CNN that the Trump team returned some materials, but not the Iran document.
In the days after the FBI seized hundreds of classified, top-secret documents from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort last August, Trump and his allies claimed the former president had a “standing order” to declassify the documents he took from the Hall. Oval for the White House residence.
But 18 former top Trump officials told CNN they never heard such an order during their time working for Trump, including Kelly, who spent 17 months as Trump’s chief of staff between 2017 and 2019.
“Nothing approaching such a foolish order has ever been given,” Kelly told CNN. “And I can’t imagine anyone who has worked in the White House since me who would just shrug their shoulders and allow this order to go ahead without dying in the ditch trying to stop it.”
Earlier this year, Trump’s legal team told Congress that classified material was inadvertently packaged late in the administration. More recently, Trump told CNN at a town hall that the materials were “automatically declassified” when he picked them up.
However, there is no indication that Trump followed the proper declassification process, and his lawyers have avoided saying until now in court whether Trump has declassified the records he kept.
Depositions
Prosecutors obtained grand jury testimony from several former senior Trump officials who detailed conversations they had with the former president about the disqualification process.
Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff, is among those who testified to a federal grand jury as part of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation and was asked about the former president’s handling of confidential documents, a source familiar with the matter said. subject to CNN on Wednesday (7).
Meadows was directly involved in helping Trump declassify additional documents relating to the FBI’s Russia investigation during his final days in office, and is seen as a critical witness in the Smith investigation.
Appearing before the grand jury earlier this year, Trump’s former national security adviser Robert O’Brien discussed conversations he had with the former president related to the presidential authority to declassify documents while in office, according to a source. familiar with the subject.
O’Brien testified that during those conversations with Trump, he made it clear that the president has the authority to declassify, but that only applies while they are in office — and even then, there is a process they must go through, the source said.
Trump’s former acting director of National Intelligence, Richard Grenell, also appeared before the grand jury in April and was similarly asked about conversations he had with the former president related to the material declassification process, the media reported. CNN in season.
Investigations
The Biden investigation, meanwhile, remains ongoing, but the special counsel overseeing that investigation, Robert Hur, does not appear to be using a grand jury at this time, sources familiar with the matter told CNN .
Hur is known to have sought only one witness, former Biden aide Kathy Chung. By comparison, Smith’s team interviewed dozens of witnesses in its Trump investigation, and several testified before grand juries convened as part of that investigation.
The investigation into former Vice President Mike Pence’s handling of classified documents was closed last Friday without a special counsel having been appointed.
Source: CNN Brasil
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