Jack Smith Memo Tied Trump’s Classified Documents to Business Interests, Newly Released Records Show

Newly disclosed case records show Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team concluded in a January 2023 progress memo that Donald Trump retained classified documents that were "pertinent to his business interests," and prosecutors saw that link as a likely motive for his concealing hundreds of pages at Mar‑a‑Lago after leaving office. The memo, reviewed by MS Now and cited in a new letter from House Judiciary Committee ranking Democrat Jamie Raskin to Attorney General Pam Bondi, also describes evidence that Trump showed a classified map to passengers on a private plane, including future chief of staff Susie Wiles, and took at least one document so sensitive that only six U.S. officials were cleared to see it. Raskin alleges the current Trump‑led Justice Department is now suppressing Volume 2 of Smith’s work and "covering up" both the mishandling of secrets—stored in showers and closets at Trump’s Florida club—and indications that Trump may have used national‑security information to benefit his global business empire, going so far as to warn that a president "may have sold out our national security to enrich himself." The White House, through spokeswoman Abigail Jackson, calls the allegations "deranged" and insists Trump "did nothing wrong," pointing to his acquittal in prior criminal cases and 2024 election victory, while Smith has told Congress he is under DOJ orders not to publicly discuss the still‑sealed portion of his investigation. The story deepens the stakes of the documents saga beyond mere record‑keeping, raising fresh questions about whether classified intelligence was intertwined with Trump Organization interests and how far the current administration is willing to go to keep the fuller investigative record from public view.