Trump’s Lawyers Urge Congressional Involvement in Classified Documents Case

President-elect Donald Trump pauses as he talks to members of the media after a meeting with Pentagon officials at Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., Dec. 21, 2016. Carlos Barria/Reuters

Donald Trump’s legal team has asked the House Intelligence Committee to intervene in the Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation of the former president’s retention of classified documents.

“DOJ is not the appropriate agency to conduct investigations pertaining to the mishandling or spillage of classified material,” Timothy C. Parlatore and other Trump attorneys wrote in a letter dated April 26 (pdf) to committee Chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio).

“DOJ should be ordered to stand down, and the intelligence community should instead conduct an appropriate investigation and provide a full report to this Committee, as well as your counterparts in the Senate.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks during a press conference at the Department of Justice in Washington on Jan. 27, 2023. Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo

Trump’s legal team also sent the letter to the rest of Congress’s intelligence-focused Gang of Eight.

That group includes Turner; Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee; Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.); Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.); House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.); House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.); Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.); and Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chair Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

NARA Allegations

The letter alleges that the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) “has become overtly political and declined to provide archival assistance to President Trump’s transition team.”

The Epoch Times documented NARA’s politicization in a January investigation.

The agency’s top lawyer, registered Democrat Gary Stern, would have been at the heart of legal decision-making in the Trump and Biden classified documents cases.

In the Trump case, the DOJ’s counterintelligence head, Jay Bratt, played a central role in that decision-making.

In an April 27 statement to The Epoch Times, National Archives Public and Media Communications denied that NARA declined to offer archival assistance to Trump’s team.

The statement cites a February letter (pdf) from Stern to Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, in which Stern changed his tune on whether NARA helped the White House.

With a poster of a New York Post front-page story about Hunter Biden's emails on display, Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) announces a recess because of a power outage during a hearing before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee at Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on Feb. 8, 2023. Alex Wong/Getty Images

He had told the committee a different story during a Jan. 31 interview with them.

“I stated at the interview [on Jan. 31, 2023] that it was my recollection that NARA had not provided such assistance,” Stern said in the February letter. “Following the interview, I checked with my colleagues, and I was informed that, in fact, NARA did send staff members to the White House in the final weeks of the Trump Administration to assist with the move of the physical records (including artifacts), in coordination with the DOD [Department of Defense] team that NARA employed to transport the records from the White House complex to the National Archives.”

In their letter, Trump’s legal team claims to have discovered why classified documents ended up in boxes at Mar-a-Lago.

“White House institutional practices for the handling of classified materials—including declassification procedures—are inconsistent with how the intelligence community and military handles classified materials. This is indicative of the staff’s packing processes and not any criminal intent by President Trump,” their letter reads.

“The White House staff simply swept all documents from the President’s desk and other areas into boxes, where they have resided ever since.”

In his February letter, Stern said he believes that NARA’s guidance “was logistical in nature and did not involve providing records management guidance.”

“The packing of boxes and transfer of records from the White House to NARA at the end of each Administration is always managed and controlled by White House and NSC [National Security Council] officials,” NARA’s April 27 statement reads. “While NARA routinely provides assistance, the NARA staff work under the direction of the White House

Trump’s lawyers claim that the discovery of classified documents at the properties of former Vice President Mike Pence and President Joe Biden suggests that the fault lies with White House practices that stretch across administrations.

Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks at "Politics & Eggs" at the New Hampshire Institute Politics at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., on Aug. 17, 2022. Scott Eisen/Getty Images

DOJ Involvement Questioned

Their letter questions the choice of sending the case to the DOJ, which, in turn, led to the execution of a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

NARA, created in 1984 (pdf) as “an independent establishment in the executive branch,” made that referral.

“The matter should have been immediately referred to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) or your Committee, and not DOJ,” the lawyers’ letter reads.

Biden appointee Avril Haines leads the ODNI.

Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Avril Haines speaks during a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken (not pictured) to the Office of Director of National Intelligence in McLean, Va., July 18, 2022. Saul Loeb/Pool via Reuters

“The improper involvement of DOJ in what should have been an administrative investigation of the mishandling or spillage of documents with classified markings set the matter on the wrong course and, in the current political environment, Attorney General Merrick Garland and DOJ predictably chose to pursue this as a criminal investigation,” the lawyers’ letter reads.

The Trump legal team’s letter states that the DOJ’s approach to Trump’s case, including its grand jury subpoena and search warrant, was marked by “aggressive combativeness” in the face of the former president’s attempts to cooperate.

They cite reporting from The Washington Post to argue that Bratt sought a search warrant for Mar-a-Lago as early as May 2022 and that he worked to prevent the FBI from additional cooperation with Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the White House, the DOJ, the House Intelligence Committee, and Trump’s legal team didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.