{"id":20533,"date":"2026-03-25T15:48:05","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T15:48:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/biden-era-doj-memo-trump-hoarded-classified-documents-relevant-his-businesses\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T15:48:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T15:48:05","slug":"biden-era-doj-memo-trump-hoarded-classified-documents-relevant-his-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/biden-era-doj-memo-trump-hoarded-classified-documents-relevant-his-businesses\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden-era DOJ memo: Trump hoarded classified documents relevant his businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

President Donald Trump maintained government documents relevant to his business interests after he left office, according to an internal memo from former special counsel Jack Smith\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

The memo, viewed by Blue Light News, was transmitted by the Justice Department to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees earlier this month. It was turned over in response to Republican-led probes into the investigations Smith led during the Biden administration surrounding Trump\u2019s alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving office, as well as his efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

\u201cProcess is very much ongoing but the FBI has already since found both \u2014 that classified documents were commingled with documents created after Trump left office and that there are classified documents that would be pertinent to certain business interests,\u201d stated the memo, dated Jan. 13, 2023.<\/p>\n

The second volume of Smith\u2019s report on his team\u2019s investigative findings, which centers around the classified documents case, is currently under a court-ordered seal. Democrats have been pushing for DOJ to release it in hopes that it could reveal damaging information about the president. New information about Trump’s conduct, unearthed in this memo, could only heighten the pressure on the administration to make the full report public.<\/p>\n

It also could inform questions from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is due to invite Smith to testify in a public hearing on his Trump investigations in the coming months.<\/p>\n

Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, alleged in a new letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi dated Tuesday that the memo suggests Trump \u201cmay have sold out our national security to enrich himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raskin also alleged that the DOJ appeared to have violated the judicial order compelling the seal of the second volume of Smith\u2019s report in handing over some materials to Congress, including grand jury material.<\/p>\n

A Justice Department spokesperson, in a statement Wednesday, rejected Raskin\u2019s claims and called his move a \u201cpolitical stunt.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spokesperson said that it was unsurprising that Smith\u2019s \u201cfiles contain salacious and untrue claims about President Trump,\u201d and the files handed over to Congress did not violate the court order, nor did they disclose relevant grand jury material.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand that Jamie Raskin, much like Jack Smith, is blinded by hatred of President Trump,\u201d the spokesperson wrote. \u201cHowever, he needs to get his facts straight \u2014 this Department of Justice is the most transparent in history in part because of our efforts to expose the weaponization of the Biden administration in full compliance with the law and the court.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, also in a statement maintained that Trump \u201cdid nothing wrong\u201d and called Raskin\u2019s actions \u201cpathetic.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for House Judiciary Democrats pointed to the irony in the Trump administration claiming to be \u201cthe most transparent in history\u201d when it was refusing to release Smith\u2019s findings.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother day, another manufactured outrage from the left,\u201d a spokesperson for House Judiciary Republicans countered.<\/p>\n

The 2023 memo transmitted to Congress also stated that Trump maintained documents that were so sensitive that only few had access to them beyond the president, and the fact that he had materials relevant to his business interests suggested \u201ca motive for retaining them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese new disclosures suggest that Donald Trump stole documents so sensitive that only six people in the entire U.S. government had access to them,\u201d Raskin wrote in his letter to Bondi. \u201cIt is time for you to stop the cover-up and allow the American people to know what secrets he betrayed and how he may have cashed in on them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gregory Svirnovskiy contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump maintained government documents relevant to his business interests after he left office, according to an internal memo from former special counsel Jack Smith\u2019s office. The memo, viewed by Blue Light News, was transmitted by the Justice Department to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees earlier this month. It was turned over in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}