WASHINGTON, March 25 (Reuters) – Newly released records in the now-dismissed classified documents case against U.S. President Donald Trump raise fresh concerns over national security risks and potential private business motivations, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee said.
The records, handed over by the U.S. Department of Justice as part of the Republican-led panel’s probe into former U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigations into Trump, show FBI investigators said in a 2023 memo that the classified documents kept by Trump after he left office were “pertinent to his business interests” and were found commingled with other documents created later, U.S. Representative Jamie Raskin said.
Some of the classified documents were also “so sensitive that only six people in the entire U.S. government had access to them”, while one box of documents was scanned, stored on a Trump aide’s laptop for nearly two years and uploaded to a cloud, raising further security concerns, Raskin added.
The newly released information also showed that Trump apparently took classified documents on a June 2022 flight to his New Jersey golf club and showed a classified map to then top campaign official Susie Wiles and potentially others, according to his letter. Wiles now serves as White House chief of staff.
“This glimpse into the trove of evidence behind the cover-up reveals a President of the United States who may have sold out our national security to enrich himself,” Raskin wrote in a letter sent on Tuesday to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.
The release of the documents to the congressional committee may have also violated a gag order imposed by the Trump-appointed federal judge in the case, he added.
Trump was accused in the case led by Smith of illegally storing documents related to U.S. national defense, including the American nuclear program, at his Mar-a-Lago social club and obstructing U.S. government efforts to retrieve the material.
Florida-based U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, appointed by Trump in 2020, dismissed the charges in 2024, ruling that Smith was improperly appointed as special counsel. Last month, she blocked the Justice Department from releasing the prosecutor’s report on the case.
The Justice Department, in a post on X, on Wednesday accused Raskin of being “blinded by his hatred of Trump” and called the Maryland Democrat’s letter “a cheap political stunt”. It also denied that the release of any records violated any judicial orders, calling the accusation “baseless”.
Trump has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in the documents case as well as a separate federal case accusing Trump of attempting to overturn his 2020 election defeat, which was dismissed after Trump won the 2024 presidential election.
“President Trump did nothing wrong,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement.
At a White House press briefing, spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt called the letter “a cheap political stunt”.
In his letter to Bondi, Raskin raised specific concerns about Trump’s business dealings in the Middle East at the time, including Saudi-backed LIV Golf and Saudi developer Dar Al Arkan, especially in light of the Republican president’s current war in Iran.
“If this map is related to our military posture in the Middle East, and it was in fact shown to any foreign official, Saudi or otherwise, that would amount to an unforgiveable betrayal of our men and women in uniform who are currently valiantly fighting in President Trump’s disastrous war against Iran,” Raskin wrote.
The Justice Department’s documents to lawmakers included a flight manifest from the June 3 trip in 2022 with the names of the passengers redacted.
Raskin asked the department to identify the passengers and provide other information about the documents by March 31.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Caitlin Webber, William Maclean and David Goodman)
