(FreedomBeacon.com)- According to reports, a federal judge ordered Donald Trump’s attorneys to disclose the names of the private detectives hired to examine four of the former president’s residences for sensitive information.
The New York Times reports that Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled on Wednesday that Trump’s legal team must provide the government with the names of the private investigators it hired in late 2017 to conduct searches for any potential leftover papers taken from the White House.
According to reports, the private investigators’ names were given to the authorities on Wednesday night.
As with other members of Trump’s closest circle, prosecutors may now decide to interview the investigators as part of the criminal investigation.
The federal government’s continued efforts to persuade Trump and his administration to return all sensitive papers ostensibly taken from the White House when Trump left office in January 2021 have taken a new turn with Howell’s ruling.
After receiving a subpoena for the former president to hand up the classified records in May, the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in August and found over 100 documents, among them those marked top secret.
A federal effort to recover the materials was launched months after the criminal investigation into claims Trump mishandled the classified materials discovered at his Florida home, and two additional documents with classified markings were found at a storage facility in West Palm Beach, Florida, just before Thanksgiving.
Two private detectives hired by Trump’s legal team to examine Trump Tower in New York, Trump’s Bedminster golf club in New Jersey, and a Florida office also turned up the records.
The FBI was subsequently given documents seized from the storage unit by Trump’s attorneys, who stated in June, when federal agents visited Mar-a-Lago before the August raid, that they thought all classified materials had been returned.
