By Andrew Goudsward
WASHINGTON, Aug 20 (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department has requested to interview FBI officials who were involved in the 2022 search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida as part of a wide-ranging probe examining past investigations of the president, four sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday.
The requests came from investigators working with Joe diGenova, a Trump ally who began overseeing the Florida-based investigation earlier this year. The investigation has been seeking to establish that Trump was the victim of a criminal conspiracy against his rights.
The questioning over the Mar-a-Lago search, which was first reported by the Associated Press, is an indication the probe is examining a range of prior government investigations into Trump’s conduct.
Spokespeople for the Justice Department and FBI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The investigation so far had appeared to focus mostly on a 2017 U.S. intelligence assessment that concluded Russia sought to boost Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016. Investigators have interviewed current and former intelligence employees over the last several months.
Several former career FBI officials who were involved in the search for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago have been approached for voluntary interviews in recent weeks, two of the sources said. The other two confirmed there had been outreach to FBI officials who were involved in the search. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
It is not clear what charges prosecutors may be exploring. The Justice Department in Trump’s second term has investigated and in some cases prosecuted several Trump critics and others who resisted his agenda or led investigations into him.
The FBI search turned up more than 100 classified documents stashed at Mar-a-Lago, including highly sensitive national security records. The search led to criminal charges against Trump and two associates who were accused of illegally retaining classified documents and obstructing government efforts to retrieve the material.
Trump has for years railed against the search of his resort, and his lawyers, led by now-Attorney General Todd Blanche, asked a judge to exclude evidence from it, arguing the search warrant was unlawful.
Prosecutors maintained they had sufficient justification, including evidence Trump thwarted previous attempts to recover the records.
A judge dismissed the case after concluding the lead prosecutor, Jack Smith, had been unlawfully appointed to the role. The DOJ dropped its appeal of that decision after Trump won the 2024 election.
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Donna Bryson and Chris Reese)
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