If the Justice Department is considering charging Mr. Trump with obstruction, there is one missing piece of information in the public understanding of the events: whether there is proof that he personally knew the documents were at Mar-a-Lago and chose not to return them all, including after the subpoena.
News accounts attributed to people familiar with the matter have said he did know he had the documents and discussed whether he ought to return them with various advisers, including at one point declaring, “They’re mine.” But because the affidavit is redacted, it is not clear what court-admissible evidence investigators have gathered in this area.
Against that backdrop, Ms. O’Sullivan noted that most of the interactions between the government and Mr. Trump’s camp went through his lawyers. She said if Mr. Trump were charged with obstruction, his only defense would be to say he did not know what was still at Mar-a-Lago and that his lawyers and aides handling the documents matter had messed up or misled him.
“He would probably look to throw his lawyers under the bus and deny that he had the requisite knowledge that he was concealing them with the intent to obstruct the return of the documents,” she said. “That is what we don’t know yet because of the affidavit redactions — whether the Department of Justice has proof that he did know that they were still concealing documents on an ongoing basis.”
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