A federal judge declined to hold Trump in contempt over classified documents seized from Mar-a-Lago.
Joe Biden’s corrupt Justice Department asked a federal judge to hold President Trump’s team in contempt for ‘failing to comply with a subpoena’ related to the Mar-a-Lago documents.
The Justice Department in May issued Trump a subpoena to return so-called classified records stored at Mar-a-Lago.
The DOJ asked US District Judge Beryl Howell, an Obama appointee, to hold Trump’s office in contempt for failing to return all documents.
Judge Howell refused to hold Trump in contempt and told the lawyers to hash out their dispute themselves.
ABC News reported:
A federal judge in Washington declined to hold former President Donald Trump or his legal team in contempt of court following a court hearing Friday as the Justice Department had requested, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
The judge instead urged the Justice Department and Trump’s legal team to resolve the dispute themselves, the sources said.
The DOJ had urged the judge to hold Trump’s team in contempt over failure to fully comply with a May subpoena for documents with classified markings that was directed to Trump’s custodian of records — a person the Trump legal team has not identified.
The proceedings were under seal and not public.
“The President and his counsel will continue to be transparent and cooperative, even in the face of the highly weaponized and corrupt witch-hunt from the Department of ‘Justice,’” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement.
“If the Department of ‘Justice’ can go after President Trump, they will surely come after any American who they disagree with,” Cheung added. “President Trump is the only one who stands in the way of the un-American weaponization of law enforcement.”
Trump’s lawyers were forced to search at least two of Trump’s properties for classified materials after the Mar-a-Lago raid.
The lawyers were instructed by an Obama-appointed federal judge to search Trump’s New Jersey Bedminster golf club and Trump Tower New York to “attest they had fully complied with a May grand jury subpoena” according to a leak to the Washington Post.
U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell told Trump’s legal team to continue their search for classified documents after the Justice Department claimed Trump’s previous searches were incomplete.
No new materials were found at either property.
“The group first conducted a search of Bedminster, and Trump’s attorneys have now attested to the Justice Department that no further materials were found, two people familiar with the matter said.” the Washington Post reported.