Three minute timer9/19/2023 "I've got boxes in my basement that I really wouldn't want you to go through," Corcoran recalled Trump telling him.Īnd sources told ABC News that, when speaking to investigators, Corcoran explained that he checked with many people about where classified documents could be found, and everyone, including Trump, created the impression that any classified documents would be in the boxes in the storage room. The indictment says that although Corcoran - who ABC News believes to be "Attorney 1" in the indictment - and Little - believed to be "Attorney 2" - "told Trump that they needed to search for documents that would be responsive to the subpoena and provide a certification that there had been compliance with the subpoena," Trump still insisted to them, "I don't want anybody looking through my boxes," and, "Wouldn't it be better if we just told them we don't have anything here?"Ĭorcoran's recordings suggest he was told by others that the only location at Mar-a-Lago that contained classified documents was the basement storage room. Still, as depicted in Corcoran's recordings and in the public indictment, Trump repeatedly suggested it might be better if they refused to cooperate. "Well, there's a prospect that they could go to a judge and get a search warrant, and that they could arrive here," Corcoran recalled warning the former president as they sat at Mar-a-Lago. The transcripts reviewed by ABC News reveal what Corcoran says he then told Trump. Trump responded with a line included in the indictment against him, asking, "what happens if we just don't respond at all or don't play ball with them?" "We've got a grand jury subpoena and the alternative is if you don't comply with the grand jury subpoena you could be held in contempt," Corcoran recalled telling Trump. Only minutes later, during a pool-side chat away from Trump, Corcoran got his own warning from another Trump attorney: If you push Trump to comply with the subpoena, "he's just going to go ballistic," Corcoran recalled.Ĭorcoran's recollections, captured in a series of voice memos he made on his phone the next day, help illuminate Trump's alleged efforts to defy a federal grand jury subpoena, and appear to shed more light on his frame of mind when he allegedly launched what prosecutors say was a criminal conspiracy to hide classified documents from both the FBI and Corcoran, his own attorney.Īs Corcoran described it in his recordings, he explained to Trump during that meeting what the former president was facing. In May of last year, shortly after the Justice Department issued a subpoena to former President Donald Trump for all classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Trump's then-lead attorney on the matter, Evan Corcoran, warned the former president in person, at Mar-a-Lago, that not only did Trump have to fully comply with the subpoena, but that the FBI might search the estate if he didn't, according to Corcoran's audio notes following the conversation.
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