Justice Department asks judge to hold Trump team in contempt over Mar-a-Lago case

[cigaretteman]

Prosecutors have urged a federal judge to hold Donald Trump’s office in contempt of court for failing to fully comply with a May subpoena to return all classified documents in his possession, according to people familiar with the matter — a sign of how contentious the private talks have become over whether the former president still holds any secret papers.
As Spencer S. Hsu, Josh Dawsey, Jacqueline Alemany, Devlin Barrett and Rosalind S. Helderman report:

In recent days, Justice Department lawyers have asked U.S. District Court Judge Beryl A. Howell to hold Trump’s office in contempt, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sealed court proceedings. But the judge has not yet held a hearing or ruled on the request, they said …
One of the key areas of disagreement centers on the Trump legal team’s repeated refusal to designate a custodian of records to sign a document attesting that all classified materials have been returned to the federal government, according to two of these people. The Justice Department has repeatedly sought an unequivocal sworn written assurance from Trump’s team that all such documents have been returned, and Trump’s team has been unwilling to designate a custodian of records to sign such a statement while also giving assurances that they have handed documents back...
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said the former president’s lawyers “continue to be cooperative and transparent.” He added: “This is a political witch hunt unlike anything like this country has ever seen.”

As our colleagues write, the government’s request for a finding of contempt underscores the fundamental distrust that has existed since the spring between the government trying to retrieve sensitive documents and a former president whose responses have proved untrustworthy.
Read more on this request here.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/08/house-pelosi-marriage-schumer-georgia-warnock-walker/#link-WJWFQJNE2ZASVBBQAOBURQRP6A

 

[THE_DEVIL]