donald trump was warned late last year by a former White House lawyer that he could face legal liability if he didn’t return the documents to the government that he took with him when he left the White House, revealed three people familiar with the matter according to The New York Times.
The informants detailed that the lawyer Eric Herschmann tried to make the former president see the seriousness of the problem and the potential for investigations and legal exposure if he did not return the documents, especially any classified material.
The newspaper indicates that this is the most recent evidence that Trump had been informed of the legal dangers to withhold material that is now at the center of a Justice Department criminal investigation.
The exact date of the meeting between the former president and Herschmann is unknown, nor is it known what knowledge had the lawyer of the contents of the boxesif he had it.
Shortly after speaking with Herschmann, Trump delivered last January to the National Archives 15 boxes of material that had been taken from the White House.
The Justice Department stated that in the boxes there were 184 classified documents.
Nevertheless, the tycoon was left with a large number of documents, among which were some with the highest security classification, and in June some returned under summons.
But it was last August 8 after the court authorized the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, which thousands more documents were seized.
Files officials had by then told the Trump team that two dozen boxes of documents were missing that they had been in the White House residence and that they qualified as presidential records, which had never been sent to the archives.
The tycoon thanked Herschmann for the talk, but did not commit to his plans to return the documentsdetailed the people familiar with the conversation.
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Source: La Opinion