(CNN) It’s Donald Trump Principal Defense Counsel He is expected to testify on Friday The former president failed to answer questions about the documents being investigated by a federal grand jury.
The attorney who appeared before a grand jury this week could make or break the special counsel’s investigation into the handling of secret records at Mar-a-Lago and obstruction of justice when the federal government tried to retrieve the documents.
Trump can no longer withhold information about his communications with his client, which led to the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago last summer, attorney Evan Corcoran said in federal court. He was ordered earlier this week to turn over notes he thought were his written work as a lawyer in the trial. Corcoran would have had a window of opportunity for several moments in which Trump and his team would respond to the federal government’s efforts to withdraw classified documents.
Prosecutors have made it clear in court proceedings, which are still under seal, that they believe Trump tried to use Corcoran to commit a crime.
A Trump spokesman criticized the latest developments, saying “lawyers only attack lawyers when there’s no case.”
When Corcoran first testified before the grand jury in January, he was asked what happened before the search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in August. But he refused to answer, prompting prosecutors to take the unusual step of forcing him to fight in court.
Prosecutors now want to hear from Corcoran about his communications with Trump regarding the May subpoena and the search for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. They also want to know about a Corcoran report drafted in June 2022 — which said a “definitive search” was conducted of boxes moved from the White House to Florida — the same day the Trump Organization was subpoenaed for surveillance footage of a June call between Trump and Corcoran at Mar-a-Lago. A person familiar with the matter said. Surveillance scenes at the end showed Boxes were moved from a storage room at the resort, a witness later said, at Trump’s direction.
That June statement, which said all confidential documents had been returned, included the signature of attorney Christina Popp, who added the caveat “to the best of my knowledge.”
Later that summer, the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago and found hundreds of government records, including classified material, that raised questions about the attorney’s credentials.
Corcoran’s second visit to the grand jury on Friday comes well into a year-long criminal investigation surrounding secret recordings of Trump.
Several of Trump’s closest advisers were subpoenaed to testify months ago, and two dozen aides and staffers around Mar-a-Lago have been arraigned before a grand jury. CNN reported.
Even on Thursday, the grand jury probing the Mar-a-Lago documents pressed for a preliminary hearing from an unidentified witness. Prosecutors in the special counsel’s office are seeking others to testify and are now often reluctant to grant deadline extensions, according to multiple sources familiar with the investigation.
