The Justice Department made clear in a legal filing Tuesday night that its early-stage criminal investigation of former President Donald Trump's handling of government documents "is not simply about efforts to recover improperly retained presidential records." The warrant to search Trump's Mar-a-Lago beachfront club for classified documents cites a section of the Espionage Act and laws on mishandling government records, but Tuesday's filing focused on evidence of efforts "likely taken to obstruct the government's investigation."
If Trump had returned all the requested files to the National Archives — classified or otherwise — in January, that would have been the end of the story, legal experts assess. But with its evidence of obstructing justice, Tuesday's filing reads "at times like a road map for a potential prosecution down the road," The New York Times reports.
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