Three Trump lawyers have appeared before grand jury in documents inquiry

Three Trump lawyers have appeared before grand jury in documents inquiryShow more

Three lawyers for Donald Trump recently appeared before a federal grand jury as part of the special counsel investigation into his possible retention of national security materials at his Mar-a-Lago resort, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

The lawyers – Evan Corcoran, Christina Bobb and, most recently, Alina Habba – were involved in efforts to compile documents that had been subpoenaed. They remain among a small number of people to have searched Mar-a-Lago.

Habba appeared before the grand jury in the documents case in recent weeks, the sources said, a notable development given she is not a member of the legal team defending Trump in that criminal matter and has represented the former president in civil suits.

The details of Habba’s testimony are unclear, though she was asked about her search last year of Trump’s office at Mar-a-Lago – from where the FBI recovered documents marked “top secret” weeks later – after Trump was subpoenaed by the New York state attorney general, Letitia James, in a separate case.

In James’ civil case against the Trump family and their business for alleged financial fraud, Habba has been the lead lawyer and told the court she had searched Mar-a-Lago and other properties for documents.

The move by the special counsel to summon Habba before the grand jury makes her the third known member of the Trump legal team to do so, after Corcoran and Bobb also made appearances in early January, and potentially the only lawyer who had gone through Trump’s office.justice department’s counter-intelligence chief, Jay Bratt, arrived on 3 June to collect a folder of responsive records, the Guardian reported.

But unsure whether the subpoena had been fully complied with, Bobb told Corcoran to amend the certification to add caveats – including that she was signing as the “custodian of records” that did not formally exist based on what she had been told, the Guardian reported.