Another attorney for former president Donald Trump said he appeared before the Washington DC grand jury probing whether the twice-impeached ex-president broke US law by unlawfully retaining classified documents at his home or obstructed a Justice Department investigation into the documents matter.
Timothy Parlatore, a defence lawyer who once represented pardoned war criminal and prominent Trump supporter Eddie Gallagher, told CNN on Thursday that he testified before the grand jury back in December.
He said he gave evidence about a series of searches carried out by Mr Trump’s lawyers and private investigators at the ex-president’s Florida property following the 8 August search conducted there by FBI agents, as well as searches at Mr Trump’s other residences in New York City and New Jersey.
“I chose to go in there because I felt that it was a good opportunity as a trial lawyer for me to go in and be able to speak directly to the grand jury to explain to them what we did, to explain to them how we had complied with the subpoena, how there was no obstruction,” he said.
Mr Parlatore was the Trump attorney who organised the follow-up searches after the FBI found hundreds of documents with classified markings in Mr Trump’s office at his Mar-a-Lago club and a storage area there while executing a search warrant signed by a federal magistrate.
He set up searches at Mr Trump’s Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club (where he spends the summer months when Mar-a-Lago is closed due to heat), as well as an office and storage unit in Palm Beach connected with the ex-president’s government-funded post-presidential office.
The attorney told CNN that prosecutors used his grand jury appearance to review reports he’d compiled on the subsequent searches, including how additional classified documents were found at Mr Trump’s Palm Beach storage unit.
He also said he declined to answer questions about his conversations with the ex-president, citing attorney-client privilege.
“They repeatedly tried to ask me about my conversations with President Trump, which is totally outside the scope of what I was there for,” he said.
The report of Mr Parlatore’s December appearance before the grand jury comes as another of Mr Trump’s lawyers. Evan Corcoran, is set to appear before that same grand jury on Friday.
Earlier in the week, a three-judge panel of the District Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals denied Mr Trump’s request to block Mr Corcoran from providing documents and testimony to the grand jury.
The former chief judge of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, Beryl Howell, had ruled that Mr Corcoran could be compelled to give evidence that would ordinarily be protected by attorney-client privilege, including notes and recordings of conversations with Mr Trump.
Judge Howell reportedly found that Mr Smith, who had asked for an order compelling Mr Corcoran’s testimony, had met the burden to show Mr Trump had used the attorney’s legal advice in the commission of a crime.
Mr Corcoran, who still represents Mr Trump in other matters, was set to appear before the grand jury on Friday.
