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Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers Wednesday pushed back against Justice Department arguments that he’s not entitled to have a “special master” to review documents taken by the FBI during a raid of his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Trump’s attorneys made their argument in a brief filed to Florida federal district court Judge Aileen M. Cannon. They said she should appoint a special master to conduct independent review the classified documents seized by the FBI, and slammed a Tuesday Justice Department filing.
“The United States Attorney’s Office, has filed an extraordinary document with this Court, suggesting that the DOJ, and the DOJ alone, should be entrusted with the responsibility of evaluating its unjustified pursuit of criminalizing a former President’s possession of personal and Presidential records in a secure setting,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.
“[T]he Government twists the framework of responding to a motion for a Special Master into an all-encompassing challenge to any judicial consideration, presently or in the future, of any aspect of its unprecedented behavior in this investigation,” Trump’s lawyers also said.
The Justice Department Tuesday released an image of highly classified documents it said it removed from former President Donald Trump’s estate as part of a raid earlier this month.
(FBI)
TRUMP FBI RAID: DOJ FILES RESPONSE ON POSSIBLE ‘SPECIAL MASTER’ APPOINTMENT FOR MAR-A-LAGO DOCS
Trump’s attorneys in previous briefs raised concerns over executive privilege, the Fourth Amendment and alleged political targeting of the former president due to the investigation being conducted by President Biden’s DOJ.
In a Tuesday filing, the DOJ said Trump’s request lacked merit for several reasons. Among those, the DOJ said, were that Trump had no standing because the records belong to the government and not to him; that the Justice Department has already reviewed the documents; that Trump does not have a valid executive privilege claim because the Justice Department is “within the Executive Branch;” and that the appointment of a special master could impede the investigation.
The Justice Department filing also included more detail on the records taken from Mar-a-Lago. And it argued that “government records were likely concealed and removed” from a storage room in Mar-a-Lago, “and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation.”
It further included a photo of several highly classified documents that were taken from Mar-a-Lago.
On the government’s argument Trump lacks standing in the case because he does not own the government documents in question, Trump’s team wrote Wednesday “It is the reasonable expectation of privacy in one’s home that triggers the obvious standing.”
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT TELLS JUDGE IT ALREADY REVIEWED TRUMP DOCUMENTS
Trump’s lawyers also said a “privilege review team” assigned to check any documents seized from his home for executive privilege was not enough. That was in part because, they wrote, the team only reviewed documents taken from “45 Office,” and not all documents removed form the Mar-a-Lago premises.
The reply brief from Trump’s lawyers comes ahead of a scheduled hearing on the motion for a special master at 1 p.m. ET Thursday. Over the weekend, Cannon announced her “preliminary intent” to appoint a special master.
It’s unclear what effect, if any, an appointment of a special master could have on the underlying investigation into Trump. Cannon’s order did not discuss a separate request from Trump for an injunction blocking the government from continuing to review the materials it removed from his estate, though that may be a topic of discussion in the hearing.
The government initiated the raid on Trump’s estate earlier this month in response to what it believed to be a violation of federal laws: 18 USC 793 — gathering, transmitting or losing defense information; 18 USC 2071 — concealment, removal or mutilation; and 18 USC 1519 — destruction, alteration or falsification of records in federal investigations.
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Trump and his lawyers, meanwhile, say that the documents were brought to his home while he was the president and that he ordered them declassified under broad authority he claims is given to the president.
This is a developing story, please check back for updates.
Fox News’ Brooke Singman, David Spunt, Ronn Blitzer and Jake Gibson contributed to this report.
