Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi expressing concerns about classified documents kept by President Donald Trump while he was out of office.
These documents were the subject of a criminal indictment against President Trump in 2023, accusing him of withholding and concealing government records despite official requests for their return.
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The criminal charges were dropped before Trump returns to office in 2025. But Trump has denounced the charges as politically motivated, and Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee have called for the release of related investigation records.
But on Wednesday, Raskin argued in a letter that the newly released records raise further questions about the legality of Trump’s actions.
“These new revelations suggest that Donald Trump stole documents so sensitive that only six people across the U.S. government had access to them,” Raskin wrote.
Raskin added that there were also new revelations suggesting that Trump may have kept classified documents related to his business interests and may have shown classified maps to passengers on his private plane.
“A glimpse of the mountain of evidence behind the cover-up reveals a president of the United States who sold out our national security to line his own pockets,” Raskin said.
He asked Bondi to answer a series of questions by March 31st and release the remaining investigative files by April 14th.
The Justice Department quickly accused Raskin of being “blinded by his hatred of President Trump.”
“Mr. Raskin’s accusations are baseless,” the ministry said in a statement, adding: “This letter is nothing more than a cheap political stunt.”
Democrats highlight new releases
In his letter, Raskin points to a 2023 memo in which prosecutors allegedly said the FBI had discovered classified documents related to Trump that “may be relevant to certain business interests.”
These documents reveal “the motives behind their retention,” they wrote. They also noted that some classified documents were “contaminated” with records created after the end of President Trump’s first term.
Raskin said prosecutors also discussed in the memo how sensitive some of the classified documents were.
These are assessed to be “the type of documents reserved only to the president and officials with the most sensitive powers,” and their release could pose “potentially grave harm to national security.”
In one example, the memo reportedly describes how President Trump’s aide Chamberlain Harris scanned several documents on a laptop and “uploaded the scan results to the cloud.”
Raskin added that the rest of the memo has been redacted, so it is “not possible to determine the full extent of this incident or whether these documents were compromised.”
He also noted that Susie Wiles, Trump’s current White House chief of staff, was identified in the memo as having “witnessed” an incident in which Trump brought classified documents, including maps, onto a plane headed to a golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
“We do not know what that secret map contained, and we cannot determine from this memo any connection between President Trump’s stolen classified documents and his ‘business interests,'” Raskin wrote.
Raskin added that if the Justice Department can release “select” documents from the investigative file, it may release the entire file.
The confidential documents lawsuit has remained unresolved since it was filed in Southern Florida District Judge Eileen Cannon’s court in 2024.
Cannon, who was appointed by Trump, dismissed the case, arguing that the special counsel’s appointment was illegal because it was not approved by the president or Congress.
But special prosecutors have been used in the U.S. government for decades. They are independent prosecutors appointed from outside the Justice Department who oversee investigations and prosecutions that may pose a conflict of interest with the executive branch.
Special prosecutor Jack Smith, who oversees classified documents cases, initially appealed Cannon’s decision. However, because the Justice Department has a policy of not prosecuting sitting presidents, Smith dropped the case after Trump was re-elected in November 2024.
Questions regarding publication of reports
However, before President Trump took office in January 2025, there was a push to release Smith’s report on the classified document incident.
However, as of February, Judge Cannon permanently blocked the release of that report, reiterating that Smith’s role as special prosecutor was illegal.
She also criticized Mr. Smith for drafting the report months after the case was dismissed, calling it a “brazen strategy” to evade her ruling.
But journalism organizations and government transparency watchdog groups continue to fight Cannon’s ruling in court, arguing that suppressing or destroying Smith’s reporting amounts to an attack on government transparency.
In his letter Wednesday, Mr. Raskin accused the Justice Department of selectively applying Mr. Cannon’s ruling and withholding or releasing records of the Smith investigation when it suits.
“The Justice Department’s position appears to be that it can violate Judge Cannon’s orders and grand jury secrecy whenever it has an opportunity to smear Jack Smith,” Raskin wrote.
The Justice Department responded, “Judge Cannon’s confidentiality order was not violated.”
Meanwhile, Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said this week: “Our goal is to release as many records as possible.” He has been a vocal critic of Smith’s investigation.
Smith, a former war crimes prosecutor in The Hague, was appointed special counsel in 2022 under the administration of Democrat Joe Biden.
He oversaw two federal investigations into President Trump during his two terms in office. One accused Republican leaders of trying to overturn their loss in the 2020 presidential election, and the other concerned President Trump’s decision to withhold classified documents.
President Trump was subpoenaed to return all classified documents in his possession at the end of his first term, but a search of his Mar-a-Lago residence uncovered boxes containing hundreds of classified government documents with classified markings.
Since returning to office for a second term, President Trump has ordered the boxes to be returned to Mar-a-Lago.
