Courts order Trump lawyer to hand over records showing plausible classified documents crimes

Donald Trump's legal team
(Image credit: Alex Kent/Getty Images)

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., on Thursday directed a lawyer for former President Donald Trump to provide documents to prosecutors investigating Trump's retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. The judges upheld an order issued Friday by U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in which she agreed with prosecutors that the documents in question offered "prima facie" evidence "that the former president committed criminal violations," ABC News and The New York Times report.

Howell's order opened the way for Special Counsel Jack Smith's office to use the "crime-fraud" exception to attorney-client secrecy and compel Trump lawyer M. Evan Corcoran to hand over notes, transcripts of recordings, and invoices related to his work for Trump on the documents case, The Washington Post reports, citing people familiar with the matter. Those documents show his services may have been used to obstruct the government's attempts to recover highly classified documents, the Post adds.

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.