The US Department of Justice (DOJ) is asking a federal judge to hold former president Donald Trump in contempt of court for failing to comply with a subpoena issued this summer ordering Trump to turn over records marked classified, CNN reported Thursday, citing two sources familiar with the matter.
The move comes after Trump’s legal team said it conducted searches at four locations just before Thanksgiving, finding additional classified documents at a storage facility in Florida.
Trump’s lawyers turned over those documents to the FBI and announced to a federal judge in Washington, DC, that they believed Trump was now in compliance with a 6-month-old subpoena. But the Justice Department disagreed, the sources told CNN.
And in an escalation last week, department prosecutors told DC District Chief Judge Beryl Howell, who oversees federal grand jury proceedings there, that the searches weren’t satisfactory an asked Howell to hold the former president accountable for ignoring the subpoena in the first place.
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As noted by CNN, “the contempt proceedings ratchet up the pressure on Trump “as he faces possible criminal charges in the Mar-a-Lago documents investigation being conducted by special counsel Jack Smith.
The development also adds another chapter to the ongoing struggle for federal officials to reclaim government records – especially those that contain national security secrets – from Trump after his administration ended.
RELATED: More Trump Classified Docs Have Been Found At Florida Storage Facility.
