Donald Trump's Legal Woes Could Get Bigger With More Possible Evidence of Obstruction

Donald Trump’s indictment in his hush money payment case is taking up the headlines, but he may have more legal trouble on the way. The Justice Department and the F.B.I. reportedly have new evidence against the former president in the classified documents’ investigation.

The Washington Post noted that special counsel Jack Smith may have unearthed evidence that Donald Trump “took or directed actions to impede government efforts to collect all the sensitive records,” before and after the subpoena he was served, according to several sources. If that revelation turns out to be true, he could be facing obstruction of justice criminal charges.

There have long been questions about Donald Trump’s administration and their reported sloppy record-keeping, but it all came to a head in August 2022 when the F.B.I. raided his Mar-a-Lago home and unearthed boxes of classified documents that should have been turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration at the end of his term. Donald Trump had plenty of opportunities to hand the documents over, but he’s now being accused of looking “through the contents of some of the boxes of documents in his home, apparently out of a desire to keep certain things in his possession” even after a subpoena, according to insiders.

Donald Trump’s team returned a selection of the documents, but “the FBI search found more than 100 additional classified items that had not been turned over.” Steven Cheung, the former president’s spokesperson gave the usual “witch-hunt” line favored by his team to the newspaper and said the case had “no basis in facts or law.” He added in a written statement, “The deranged special counsel and the DoJ have now resorted to prosecutorial misconduct by illegally leaking information to corrupt the legal process and weaponize the justice system in order to manipulate public opinion and conduct election interference, because they are clearly losing all across the board.”

The grand jury investigation is still ongoing, but Donald Trump has quite a few details to tend to with his Tuesday, April 4 arraignment and a 2024 presidential campaign to run.

Before you go, click here to see the biggest presidential scandals in US History.