特别检察官办公室的检察官提出了令人信服的初步证据唐纳德·特朗普故意误导他自己的律师机密材料据向ABC新闻描述其内容的消息人士称，一名前最高联邦法官在离任后，于周五在一份密封文件中写道。
据消息人士称，周五辞去华盛顿特区地方法院首席法官职务的美国法官贝里尔·豪厄尔(Beryl Howell)上周写道，特别顾问杰克·史密斯办公室的检察官已经“初步证明前总统犯了刑事罪”，因此他的两名律师援引的律师-客户特权可能会被突破。
特朗普一再否认他在处理机密文件时有任何不当行为。
在她的密封文件中，豪厄尔命令特朗普的律师埃文·科克兰遵从大陪审团的传票在六条独立的调查线索上作证，在这些线索上他曾宣称律师-委托人特权。
消息人士补充说，豪厄尔还命令科科伦交出一些与豪厄尔所说的特朗普所谓的“犯罪计划”有关的记录，这与检察官的说法一致。这些记录包括手写笔记、发票和个人录音转录。
在达到所谓的初步证据标准以穿透科科伦的特权时，豪厄尔同意检察官做出了充分的证明，从表面上看，似乎表明特朗普犯了罪。法官明确表示，检察官仍需要满足更高的证据标准，才能寻求对特朗普的指控，更需要证明他的罪行超出了合理怀疑。
“这是一个较低的障碍，但这表明政府提交了一些证据和指控，表明他们有符合犯罪要素的证据，”司法部前国家安全高级官员布兰登·范·格拉克(Brandon Van Grack)告诉美国广播公司新闻(ABC News)，他现在是一名私人执业律师。
美国前总统唐纳德·特朗普的法律团队在M. Evan Corcoran的带领下，于2022年9月20日抵达纽约市布鲁克林联邦法院。
亚历克斯·肯特/盖蒂图片社，文件
消息人士称，豪厄尔发现，检察官展示了“足够”的证据，证明特朗普“故意隐瞒”了科科伦其他机密文件的存在，使科科伦在不知情的情况下欺骗了政府。
目前还不清楚豪厄尔可能查看了DOJ和川普律师的哪些密封证据，以帮助她做出决定。
在回应美国广播公司新闻时，特朗普竞选发言人说，部分原因是“美国广播公司播放非法泄露的虚假指控，这些指控来自一个从未特朗普，现为前首席法官，针对特朗普法律团队。”
这位发言人说:“真正的故事是，美国广播公司应该报道的假新闻是，检察官只有在没有任何证据的情况下才会攻击律师。”
特别检察官办公室的发言人拒绝对美国广播公司新闻发表评论。
消息人士描述的事态发展显示了这位前总统目前法律脆弱性的另一个层面。随着史密斯的机密文件调查向前推进，纽约的检察官正在考虑单独起诉指控特朗普在2016年总统大选前向一名成人电影明星支付封口费。特朗普还面临佐治亚州的审查他试图推翻该州2020年的总统选举，史密斯正在继续调查特朗普干涉2020年选举的企图。
史密斯在机密文件调查中所做努力的核心是确定代表前总统的律师是否在回应大陪审团传票时虚假证明特朗普已将所有机密记录归还给政府，或者特朗普本人是否试图隐瞒他可能非法保留的记录。
联邦检察官声称特朗普的律师2022年6月认证对特朗普的Mar-a-Lago房产进行“勤奋搜索”后，仅发现38份机密文件存放在一个安全的储藏室中。但是两个月后，当联邦调查局特工搜查房屋检察官说，他们发现了100多份标有机密的文件，其中一些位于储藏室外面，包括特朗普的办公桌。
在上周五的命令中，豪厄尔毫不留情地批评了特朗普自去年初以来为回应政府试图检索从白宫拿走的所有机密文件而采取的行动。消息人士称，她一度将特朗普与国家档案馆官员的互动描述为“彩排”，因为他后来在回应大陪审团传票时试图误导。
正如美国广播公司新闻所说以前报告过作为调查的一部分，调查人员试图迫使科科伦和特朗普的另一名律师詹妮弗·利特尔(Jennifer Little)作证，援引犯罪欺诈例外，该例外允许在涉嫌犯罪时提供法律服务的情况下，打破律师-客户特权。消息来源告诉美国广播公司新闻，豪厄尔下令利特尔的证词，除了一个主题，她试图维护律师-客户特权。
消息人士称，检察官试图质疑科科伦如何帮助特朗普的另一名律师克里斯蒂娜·博布(Christina Bobb)起草2022年6月提交给司法部的声明，博布最终签署了该声明。
消息人士称，特朗普的律师预计将对豪厄尔周五的裁决提起上诉。
Sources: Special counsel claims Trump deliberately misled his attorneys about classified documents, judge wrote
Prosecutors in the special counsel's office have presented compelling preliminary evidence that former PresidentDonald Trumpknowingly and deliberately misled his own attorneys about his retention ofclassified materialsafter leaving office, a former top federal judge wrote Friday in a sealed filing, according to sources who described its contents to ABC News.
U.S. Judge Beryl Howell, who on Friday stepped down as the D.C. district court's chief judge, wrote last week that prosecutors in special counsel Jack Smith's office had made a "prima facie showing that the former president had committed criminal violations," according to the sources, and that attorney-client privileges invoked by two of his lawyers could therefore be pierced.
Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in his handling of classified documents.
In her sealed filing, Howell ordered that Evan Corcoran, an attorney for Trump, shouldcomply with a grand jury subpoenafor testimony on six separate lines of inquiry over which he had previously asserted attorney-client privilege.
Sources added that Howell also ordered Corcoran to hand over a number of records tied to what Howell described as Trump's alleged "criminal scheme," echoing prosecutors. Those records include handwritten notes, invoices, and transcriptions of personal audio recordings.
In reaching the so-called prima facie standard to pierce Corcoran's privilege, Howell agreed prosecutors made a sufficient showing that on its face would appear to show Trump committed crimes. The judge made it clear that prosecutors would still need to meet a higher standard of evidence in order to seek charges against Trump, and more still to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
"It is a lower hurdle, but it is an indication that the government had presented some evidence and allegation that they had evidence that met the elements of a crime," Brandon Van Grack, a former top national security official in the Justice Department who is now in private practice, told ABC News.
Howell found that prosecutors showed "sufficient" evidence that Trump "intentionally concealed" the existence of additional classified documents from Corcoran, sources said, putting Corcoran in an unwitting position to deceive the government.
It's unclear what evidence Howell may have reviewed under seal from both DOJ and Trump's attorneys to help her arrive at her decision.
In response to ABC News, a Trump campaign spokesperson said, in part, "Shame on Fake News ABC for broadcasting ILLEGALLY LEAKED false allegations from a Never Trump, now former chief judge, against the Trump legal team."
"The real story here, that Fake News ABC SHOULD be reporting on, is that prosecutors only attack lawyers when they have no case whatsoever," the spokesperson said.
A spokesperson for the special counsel's office declined to comment to ABC News.
The developments described by sources illustrate another dimension of the former president's ongoing legal vulnerabilities. As Smith's classified documents probe marches forward, prosecutors in New York are mulling aseparate indictmentagainst Trump over hush payments he allegedly paid to an adult film star ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Trump also facesscrutiny in Georgiaover his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state, and Smith is continuing his own probe into Trump's attempts to interfere in the 2020 election.
Central to Smith's efforts in the classified documents probe is determining whether lawyers who represented the former president falsely certified in response to a grand jury subpoena that Trump had returned all classified records to the government or whether Trump himself sought to conceal records that he might have unlawfully retained.
Federal prosecutors have claimed that lawyers for Trumpcertified in June 2022that a "diligent search" of Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate turned up just 38 classified documents stored in a secured storage room. But two months later, when FBI agentsraided the premises, they found more than 100 additional documents marked classified -- some of which were located outside of the storage room, including in Trump's office desk, prosecutors said.
In her order last Friday, Howell was unsparing in her criticism of Trump's actions since early last year in response to the government's attempts to retrieve all classified documents taken from the White House. At one point she described Trump's interactions with officials from the National Archives as a "dress rehearsal," sources said, for his later efforts at misdirection in response to the grand jury subpoena.
As ABC News haspreviously reported, investigators sought to compel the testimony of Corcoran and another Trump attorney, Jennifer Little, as part of their probe, citing the crime-fraud exception, which allows for attorney-client privilege to be pierced in cases where it is suspected that legal services were rendered in the commission of a crime. Sources told ABC News that Howell ordered Little's testimony as well, with the exception of one of the topics for which she sought to assert attorney-client privilege.
Sources said prosecutors have sought to question Corcoran on how he aided another Trump attorney, Christina Bobb, in drafting the June 2022 statement to the Justice Department, which Bobb ultimately signed.
Attorneys for Trump were expected to appeal Howell's Friday ruling, sources said.
