One of Donald Trump's attorneys said they had finished searching the former president's properties for classified materials and turned over the results to the Justice Department.
In addition, he acknowledged that, in response to a subpoena, Trump's legal team turned over to the Department of Justice a blank manilla folder labeled "Classified Evening Summary" that had been discovered in the former president's bedroom.
Attorney for Trump in both the special counsel investigation into his handling of classified material and the investigation into the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Timothy Parlatore, confirmed to the Justice Department in January that additional classified documents were found during a search in December.
"We've tried to do searches of all the relevant places, and anytime we've found anything, we've immediately turned it over," Parlatore told CNN in an exclusive interview
On Sunday, Parlatore reaffirmed his earlier claims that the aide was unaware that the confidential material she scanned on the laptop was secret.
When asked why classified documents were found at Trump properties two years after he left office, Trump attorney Michael Parlatore pointed the finger at White House protocol for dealing with sensitive material after an administration leaves office, comparing the circumstances surrounding his client to those of former Vice President Mike Pence and President Joe Biden.
"When you have DOJ go into these things, they are automatically going in with all the criminal processes and trying to threaten people to go to jail over something that is a procedural failure and an institutional procedural failure that has nothing to do with Mike Pence, Donald Trump or, quite frankly, Joe Biden," he said.
Parlatore revealed on Sunday that Trump plans to use executive privilege to limit the testimony of Pence and former national security adviser Robert O'Brien in the second probe into January 6 being conducted by special counsel Jack Smith.
He said Pence would be following Trump's team's advice for all witnesses in such matters to maintain their confidentiality.
According to Parlatore, the Department of Justice should be "benched" from investigating sensitive matters involving classified information, and instead of appointing special counsels, it should be up to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to conduct an administrative review of the White House's procedure for handling sensitive documents at the end of each presidency.
