WASHINGTON — Lawyers for Donald Trump met with Justice Department officials Monday morning, the week the grand jury investigating the former president’s handling of classified documents is set to reconvene.
NBC News has confirmed that part of Trump’s legal team met with Special Counsel Jack Smith and others at Justice Department headquarters in Washington on Monday, according to a person familiar with the matter. Three of Trump’s lawyers – James Trusty, John Rowley and Lindsey Halligan – were at the Justice Department and met with the group of Justice Department officials, which included at least one other career prosecutor; the meeting did not include Attorney General Merrick Garland or Assistant Attorney General Lisa Monaco. Trump’s team was spotted for the first time by CBS News then was seen emerging from the building just before noon.
NBC News reported that the grand jury investigating Trump’s handling of classified documents is expected to meet again this week. The FBI searched Trump’s Florida estate at Mar-a-Lago in August, finding more than 11,000 government records, including more than “one hundred unique records with classification marks,” according to an earlier government filing.
An FBI affidavit said the FBI found 184 classified documents in the boxes Trump returned to the National Archives before the August search, which revealed the additional classified documents.
Shortly after his attorneys left the Justice Department, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform. “HOW CAN I BE ACCUSED, WHO DID NOTHING WRONG, WHEN NO OTHER PRESIDENT HAS BEEN CHARGED, WHEN JOE BIDEN WILL NOT BE CHARGED FOR NOTHING,” he wrote. The Justice Department has not announced any charges.
Garland announced Smith’s appointment as special adviser just after Trump officially launched his campaign for the 2024 Republican nomination. Smith is investigating both Trump’s handling of classified documents – as well as the potential obstruction of this investigation – and on aspects of the January 6 investigation and its effects on “interference with the legal transfer of power after the 2020 presidential election or certification of the election College vote held on or about on January 6, 2021, as well as any matters that arise or may arise directly from this investigation.
CORRECTION (June 5, 2023, 12:09 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article misspelled the first name of one of Trump’s lawyers. She’s Lindsey Halligan, not Lyndsey.
This article originally appeared on NBCNews.com