CNN
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Two people who found two classified documents for Donald Trump at a Florida storage facility have testified before a federal grand jury in Washington, where the former president was at his Mar-a-Lago home about the handling of national security information, sources said. Examination.
The two individuals hired to search four Trump properties last spring were interviewed for three hours each in separate depositions last week.
They were hired to search Trump’s Bedminster Golf Club, Trump Tower in New York, office space in Florida and a storage unit in Florida months after the FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago last October. Although they declined to answer questions, the extent of the information they provided to the grand jury was unclear, one of the sources said.
The development comes at the same time federal prosecutors are pushing to look at files on at least one employee’s laptop around Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, multiple sources said. At times, the special counsel’s office refused to negotiate with defense attorneys over recent subpoenas, leading to tense conversations.
In a push to access the computers, investigators are trying to determine the existence of an electronic backlog of classified documents, another source said.
The investigation marks the continuation of major judicial activity in the Mar-a-Lago documents case as the Justice Department raises new questions about unsecured national security information related to President Joe Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence. .
The Justice Department declined to comment to CNN, as did Trump’s attorney.
Federal prosecutors have taken a tougher line on Trump’s questioning since last summer, when the Justice Department disclosed evidence that records Trump kept in Florida were hidden or deleted, heightening the need for a sanctions probe.
The situations for Biden and Pence were very different. Despite highlighting the corruption surrounding the surveillance of classified documents, both the Biden and Pence teams have turned them over to intelligence officials.
Two people hired by Trump’s lawyers obtained access to the additional records in November after the Trump team and the FBI obtained hundreds of other classified documents in their possession following a court-authorized warrant from his presidency. At the time, Trump’s lawyers were engaged in a dispute with the Justice Department over whether they had adequately searched his properties and turned over all classified records in their possession. The DOJ was not satisfied and their investigation continued.
A court battle in which the DOJ tried to hold Trump in contempt for failing to comply with a May 2022 subpoena for all records is also unresolved.
Since investigators sent that subpoena, Trump’s lawyers have responded in writing three times that they have conducted diligent searches.
Special counsel Jack Smith and the prosecutors who now work for him have used a federal grand jury to question witnesses in the Mar-a-Lago investigation every week.
The witnesses answered all the questions asked last week, no attempt was made to ensure confidentiality, according to one of the sources.