In May of last year, shortly after the Justice Department issued a subpoena to former President Donald Trump for all classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Trump’s then-lead attorney on the matter, Evan Corcoran, warned the former president in person, at Mar-a-Lago, that not only did Trump have to fully comply with the subpoena, but that the FBI might search the estate if he didn’t, according to Corcoran’s audio notes following the conversation.

Only minutes later, during a pool-side chat away from Trump, Corcoran got his own warning from another Trump attorney: If you push Trump to comply with the subpoena, “he’s just going to go ballistic,” Corcoran recalled.

Corcoran’s recollections, captured in a series of voice memos he made on his phone the next day, help illuminate Trump’s alleged efforts to defy a federal grand jury subpoena, and appear to shed more light on his frame of mind when he allegedly launched what prosecutors say was a criminal conspiracy to hide classified documents from both the FBI and Corcoran, his own attorney.

[If true, then it would explain why he kept Corcoran in the dark, too. It would also tend to support the indictment’s claim that Trump’s obstruction was deliberate and purposefully deceitful. His current attorneys are raising a hue and cry over attorney-client privilege, which will play an important part in whether Corcoran’s notes will get used in court and is worth watching. However, the allegation that Trump used an unwitting Corcoran to deceive the grand jury certainly runs the risk of triggering a well-established exception to that rule, when the privilege is abused to further a crime. — Ed]