Prosecutors sought records of Trump’s foreign business deals since 2017
Federal prosecutors overseeing the investigation into former President Donald J. Trump’s handling of classified documents have issued a subpoena for information about Mr. Trump’s business dealings abroad since he took office, according to two people familiar with the case.
It remains unclear exactly what prosecutors hoped to find by sending the subpoena to Mr. Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, or when it was issued. But the subpoena suggests investigators have cast a wider net than previously believed, as they investigate whether he broke the law by taking sensitive government material with him when leaving the White House and then failing to fully comply with demands for their return. .
The subpoena — prepared by the office of special counsel, Jack Smith — sought details of the Trump Organization’s real estate licensing and development transactions in seven countries: China, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, according to those familiar with the matter. The subpoena sought records for deals made since 2017, when Mr Trump was sworn in as president.
The Trump Organization renounced all foreign deals while in the White House, and the only deal Trump has made since then was with a Saudi Arabia-based real estate company to license its name to a housing, hotel and golf complex to be built in Oman. He closed that deal last fall, just before announcing his third presidential campaign.
The pressure from Mr Smith prosecutors to gain insight into the former president’s foreign affairs was part of a subpoena – previously reported by The New York Times – sent to the Trump Organization seeking documents regarding Mr. Trump’s dealings with a Saudi-backed golf venture known as LIV Golf, which holds tournaments at a number of its golf clubs. (Mr. Trump’s settlement with LIV Golf was reached long after he removed documents from the White House.)
Collectively, the subpoena’s demand for documents related to the golf company and other foreign companies since 2017 suggests that Mr. Smith is investigating whether there is a connection between Mr. Trump’s deal abroad and the classified documents he took with him when he took his left office. .
It is unclear what material the Trump Organization handed over in response to the subpoena or whether Mr. Smith obtained any separate evidence supporting that theory. But since their investigation began, prosecutors have tried to understand not only what kinds of materials Mr. Trump removed from the White House, but also why he may have taken them.
Among the government documents discovered in Mr Trump’s possession were some related to countries in the Middle East, according to a person familiar with Mr Smith’s work. And when the FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Florida, in August 2022, the items recovered included material related to President Emmanuel Macron of France, according to court documents.
A spokesperson for Mr Trump did not respond to emails requesting comment. A spokeswoman for the Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Since it became known that Mr. Trump had hundreds of classified documents at his private properties, including Mar-a-Lago, in early 2022, people close to him have said he often referred to the boxes of material that federal officials wanted back as “the mine.”
This month, Mr. Trump said something similar at a televised town hall event on CNN, stating that he knowingly took government documents from the White House when he left. He further claimed that he was allowed to do so because he considered the documents to be his personal property.
“I brought the documents; That’s allowed,” Trump said at town hall, at one point claiming he had “the absolute right” to take control of government records under the Presidential Records Act. That law, which went into effect in 1978 after the Watergate scandal, gave the government control over presidential records — not individual presidents.
Mr Trump’s comments that the files are his personal property were in line with advice he is said to have received from Tom Fitton, the head of the conservative group Judicial Watch, who has testified to prosecutors investigating the case, according to people familiar with their conversations.
While establishing a motive for why Mr. Trump kept certain documents might be helpful to Mr. Smith, it is not necessarily required to prove that Mr. Trump was willfully in possession of national defense secrets or that he repeated attempts by the government to get the materials back. Those two potential crimes have long been at the heart of the government’s documentary investigation.
Mr. Smith also examines Mr. Trump’s attempts to stay in power after he lost the November 2020 election to President Biden. .
A third lead of Mr. Smith’s investigation focuses on Mr. Trump’s efforts to use claims from election fraud investigations to raise money. Mr. Trump raised tens of millions of dollars in small amounts from donors when he made allegations of election fraud that were eventually debunked.
Mr. Smith’s team is still bringing witnesses to the grand jury in connection with that case. A witness this week is William Russell, an aide to Mr Trump who worked for him in the White House and who was paid by Mr Trump’s political action committee, Save America, where much of the money raised went.
Mr Trump was recently charged in Manhattan, where prosecutors accused him of covering up a sex scandal during the 2016 election.