By Steve Neavling
The special counsel investigating Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents is urging a court to force his attorney to provide additional testimony, a significant development in the case.
Prosecutors are asking a federal judge to allow prosecutors to sidestep attorney-client privilege by invoking the crime-fraud exception, which is used when there’s suspicions that legal services were used in furtherance of a crime, The New York Times first reported.
Special counsel Jack Smith’s team wants Trump’s attorney, M. Evan Corcoran, to answer more questions before a grand jury. He previously appeared before a grand jury for about four hours.
Prosecutors are exploring whether Trump or his associates obstructed justice when they failed to return government documents that Trump took with him when he left office.
Corcoran turned over more than 30 documents to investigators in June after the Justice Department issued a subpoena for the material.
In a statement allegedly drafted by Corcoran, another Trump lawyer, Christina Bobb, insisted a “diligent search” had been conducted at Mar-a-Lago.
But FBI agents discovered more than 100 additional classified documents when they searched Mar-a-Lago in August.
