On her final day as top judge in the District of Columbia on Friday afternoon—in her final act—Chief Justice Beryl A. Howell did more than allow the Justice Department to do more. interrogated former President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer. She actually took the rare step of handing over the attorney’s notes to federal prosecutors, according to a person familiar with the arrangement.
In doing so, Howell may have planted the seeds of a future constitutional challenge. But up front, she’s given Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith a parting gift: what she sees as evidence of a crime involving the former president’s hoarding of classified documents. wrongly after he left office.
M. Evan Corcoran, a former federal prosecutor, represented Trump in that secret document scandal. And while Corcoran has been busy as Trump’s attorney, the investigation now appears to have put Corcoran himself in legal jeopardy.
According to one source, Corcoran’s professional notes about his private communications with his clients were passed on to Judge Howell, who was conducting a “pre-camera review”—a secret screening of records. carefully controlled secrecy often takes place in the judge’s room.
Judges who come to the conclusion that certain sensitive and legally protected documents must be turned over to the opposing party often order a party to do so with deadlines. According to two lawyers unrelated to the case who spoke to The Daily Beast but asked to remain anonymous, doing so would give the losing party the ability to appeal to a higher court — and prevent damages. Reversible can forever tarnish a case.
But Howell seems to have ignored that careful but tedious approach — and only handed Smith a bunch of documents that could show Trump and one of his lawyers were planning a crime.
Either way, Trump’s legal team still has no recourse, and federal prosecutors have more evidence to bolster next steps in their bulging investigation.
“She took all legal aid out of their hands. If she orders them to do it, they can appeal on an urgent basis. She may have been worried from what she read in the documents. She may not have trusted them to comply,” said David Cross, an experienced federal litigation attorney at the Washington firm Morrison & Foerster who was not involved in the Trump case.
A spokesman for the DOJ special counsel did not respond to a request for comment Friday night.
On Friday, as part of the sealing procedure, Howell ordered Corcoran to provide additional testimony to the DOJ, CNN First report on Friday. She decided that investigators who could penetrate the ironclad blanket often had attorney-client privilege because of something called the “crime-fraud exception.” In essence, the judge found that any legal advice Corcoran gave Trump was used to further the crime.
But in flipping over his notes, Howell’s alleged actions stand in stark contrast to the more traditional approach taken by a federal judge in California who has faced questions same last year. In that case, the January 6 Committee is trying to access documents protected by attorney-client privilege to explore how Trump hired conservative legal scholar John Eastman in an effort to maintain power after losing the 2020 election.
U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter concluded that “President Trump and Dr. Eastman most likely committed the crime of obstructing a formal proceeding… and conspiring to defraud the United States.” But when he command on June 7, 2022 when Eastman turned over 159 documents to the congressional committee, he gave Eastman a day to comply.
Howell’s decision on Friday appears to be her final as chief justice of the all-important DC court, home to many of the nation’s most important policy debates, political debates, and political debates. national security investigations and constitutional challenges.
She was replaced by James Boasberg, another federal judge also appointed by President Barack Obama.
Howell’s last-minute decision in the Trump case could mark a turning point in the special counsel’s investigation, because it has the potential to speed up the investigation. But notably, the story continues to take place behind closed doors. Her warrant in this case remains sealed, and the grand jury investigation continues in legally protected secrecy.
The complete lack of transparency in this historic case — and the surprising ability of journalists to still divulge details of secret proceedings — became the subject of much laughter during the farewell party. her on Friday, according to politicswhich describes her being “baked and occasionally roasted.”
So while Trump’s legal sketch in public court against the New York Attorney General allows the American public to see how the Trump Organization has ignored subpoenas and slowed down investigators, this Justice Department effort has largely continued in the shadows—though the consequences could be far greater. serious.
Federal prosecutors are considering criminal charges against the former president for inciting the January 6 uprising, defrauding the nation and the courts with bogus election fraud schemes, and how he refused to return classified documents kept on his Mar- beach estate in South Florida. a-Lago long after leaving the White House.
