Democrats on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday demanded that President Donald Trump Department of Justice “Stop the coverage” of former special counsel Jack Smith’s full investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents after his first term, after new material sent to the panel revealed some documents were stolen to further the president’s business interests.
Ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) has written to the General Prosecutor Pam Bondi about “cherry-picked documents” related to Smith’s investigations into obtaining classified documents from Trump, which he kept at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey.
The DOJ has regularly produced documents for the Judiciary Committee as Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) sought to portray Smith as a partisan vendetta against the president. said Raskin. Smith led investigations into Trump’s collection of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election during The Biden administration. Last month, Trump appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon permanently trapped release of Smith’s final report on the documents matter.
Raskin wrote on Wednesday that although Jordan has launched a “vindictive campaign” against Smith and requested a narrow selection of material from the DOJ, Bondi “strangely missed the fact that some of the documents you provided include damning evidence of your boss’s conduct and may violate your DOJ’s writ of error and Donald Trump asked Judge Aileen Cannon.”
Those documents include a January 13, 2023 memo from prosecutors that said FBI had determined that Trump held documents that “would be related to certain business interests.” The documents “established a motive for their withholding” related to Trump’s businesses.
The prosecutors’ memo also said that withholding some of the documents represented “potential grave harm to national security,” with a “particularly sensitive document” accessible only to six people in the US government, including the president, before he took it to his private estate.
Trump and his family have received punishments for benefiting from the presidency, with the family grabbing at more than $5 billion in cryptocurrency profits since he took office for the second time, and Trump’s two oldest sons investing to a drone company competing for it The Pentagon contracts while the president wages war on Iran.
The prosecutors’ memo also said that keeping some of the documents represented “a potentially serious harm to national security,” with a “particularly sensitive document” accessible only to about six people in the U.S. government, including the president, before he took it to his private estate.
Saudi sovereign wealth fund link?
Additionally, the memo says prosecutors had “identified a classified map that we believe Trump may have shown to individuals aboard” his private jet in June 2022. Susie Wiles, CEO of Trump’s super political action committee and now The White House chief of staff, “was on board and witnessed this event. Raskin’s letter includes a flight manifest that lists 14 people who were aboard Trump’s private jet when he allegedly showed the classified map, but all names were redacted.
Raskin stressed that without access to the second volume of Smith’s final report, the Judiciary Committee cannot confirm what the classified map shows, the relationship between his business interest and the classified documents, or what is particularly sensitive material.
The congressman noted that several facts are known about Trump’s activities around the time he allegedly showed the classified map:
We do know that around the time of this flight to Bedminster, President Trump was entering into a partnership with Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf and state-linked real estate firm Dar al Arkan. A month after that flight, in July 2022, President Trump played golf in Bedminster with Yasir al-Rumayyan, the head of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund — the same official who supplied the Trump family with tens of millions of dollars as the family ran out of money midterms…. We also know there are reports that Donald Trumpat one point while on the phone with his ghostwriter, “made a reference to having classified information about the bombing of Iran.” He also reportedly boasted that it was only the hawks who wanted to attack Iran, not him, and that he had Pentagon war plans “made by the military and given to me” for such a possible attack.
“If this map is linked to our military position in the Middle East, and is actually shown to any foreign official, Saudi or otherwise, it would constitute an unforgivable betrayal of our men and women in uniform who are currently fighting valiantly in President Trump’s disastrous war against Iran,” Raskin wrote.
“It is now clear that the DOJ has evidence that President Trump has already jeopardized national security to further the interests of Trump family businesses,” he wrote. “It is time for you to stop the cover-up and let the American people know what secrets he has betrayed and how he may have acquired them.”
Raskin requested information from the DOJ about who had access to the classified materials, whether any foreign actors were given access and what the documents contained.
“Every new detail that comes to light about the report Judge Cannon went to great lengths to keep under wraps underscores the same underlying truth: The public is being denied access to critical information about one of the most serious national security scandals in American history,” said Chioma Chukwu, executive director of government watchdog American Oversight.
“While fragments of the factual record have seen the light of day, the full report remains sealed because Judge Cannon prioritized the president’s personal interests over transparency. The public has a right to see special counsel Smith’s findings in full. Blocking the report’s release serves only to protect those in power and prevent accountability.”
After Raskin’s letter was published, the DOJ seized it social media THE accused him and Smith that they are “blinded by hatred of President Trump” and declare the department “the most transparent in history.”
“This letter is nothing more than a cheap political stunt, almost as if it is taking cues from members of the corrupt Jack Smith prosecution team,” the DOJ said.
House Judiciary Committee Democrats answered him that the administration is “doing legal gymnastics to prevent the American people from ever seeing special counsel Jack Smith’s full report on how Trump stole classified documents to advance his corrupt business interests.”
“If the DOJ is so confident in Trump’s behavior, why are they so desperate to keep the Smith report under lock and key?” they asked. “Stop the cover-up, release the evidence and let the American people decide for themselves.”
Originally published by Shared dreamsthis article is republished under a Creative Commons license.
