The FBI’s code name for its investigation into former President Trump’s handling of classified documents was “Plasmic Echo,” according to court documents released Monday.
The name was listed in unredacted court documents filed Monday in the former president’s confidential documents case. The FBI electronic communication included in the court documents lists a case identification, which was redacted, followed by the text ‘PLASMIC ECHO; Mishandling of classified or national defense information.”
The file, dated February 22, 2024, is the FBI’s summary of an initial review of documents the agency received from the National Archives. He said classified documents were found in 12 of the 15 boxes Trump returned to the archives that year.
The summary was among hundreds of pages of documents filed by Trump’s legal team on Monday to outline the former president’s attempts to obtain additional records from the federal government in the case. CNN reported.
The Hill has reached out to the FBI and the Justice Department for further comment.
The former president faces 40 charges alleging he mishandled classified records and attempted to obstruct the government’s recovery of those records after leaving the White House in 2021. Prosecutors allege the documents contained national defense and weapons information, some of which they had top secret brands.
The government’s recovery of more than 300 classified records included an FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in August 2022.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon last week denied the former president’s efforts to dismiss the case, arguing that the records could have been considered personal records.
Trump said he designated the records in question as personal under the Presidential Records Act before leaving the White House. Cannon ruled that the Presidential Records Act does not “provide a pretrial basis for dismissal.”
Trump is largely being prosecuted under the Espionage Act, which prohibits the intentional withholding of national defense information. He is also accused of obstruction of justice for trying to hide the records from authorities after they demanded their return and prosecutors argued that the PRA had no influence on Trump’s ability to retain the documents.
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