But he said he continued to believe it should not remain sealed in its entirety because of the “intense” public interest in the investigation. Separately Monday, a federal judge acknowledged that redactions to an FBI affidavit spelling out the basis for the search might be so extensive as to make the document “meaningless” if released to the public. After the meeting at Mar-a-Lago, investigators interviewed another witness who told them that there were likely additional classified documents still at the estate, according to a person familiar with the investigation who was not authorized to speak publicly about it. Several weeks later, the Justice Department subpoenaed for video footage from surveillance cameras at the estate. An initial review of that material concluded that Trump had brought presidential records and several other documents that were marked classified to Mar-a-Lago.įBI and Justice Department officials visited Mar-a-Lago in June and asked to inspect a storage room. The months-long investigation, which burst into public view with the Mar-a-Lago search, emerged from a referral from the National Archives, which earlier this year retrieved 15 boxes of documents and other items from the estate that should have been turned over to the agency when Trump left the White House. The lawsuit argues that the records, created during Trump’s White House tenure, are “presumptively privileged.” But the Supreme Court has never determined whether a former president can assert executive privilege over documents, writing in January that the issue is unprecedented and raises “serious and substantial concerns.” Merely `adequate’ safeguards are not acceptable when the matter at hand involves not only the constitutional rights of President Trump, but also the presumption of executive privilege,” the attorneys wrote. “This matter has captured the attention of the American public. In other cases, that role has sometimes been filled by a retired judge. The filing specifically requests the appointment of a special master not connected the case who would be tasked with inspecting the records recovered from Mar-a-Lago and setting aside those that are covered by executive privilege - a principle that permits presidents to withhold certain communications from public disclosure. In a separate statement, Trump said “ALL documents have been previously declassified” _ though he has not produced evidence to support that claim - and described the records as having been “illegally seized from my home.” The Justice Department countered in a terse three-sentence statement pointing out that the search had been authorized by a federal judge after the FBI presented probable cause that a crime had been committed. It also attacks the warrant as overly broad. 8 search, in which the FBI said it recovered 11 sets of classified documents, as a “shockingly aggressive move” and describes Trump and his representatives as having cooperated for months as federal agents scrutinized the presence of presidential records and classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
It comes as The New York Times reported that the government has recovered more than 300 documents marked classified from Mar-a-Lago since Trump left office, including more than 150 retrieved by the National Archives in January - a number that helped trigger the criminal investigation. The request was included in a court filing, the first by Trump’s legal team in the two weeks since the search, that takes broad aim at the FBI investigation into the discovery of classified records at Mar-a-Lago and that foreshadows arguments his lawyers are expected to make as the probe proceeds.
president Donald Trump asked a federal judge Monday to prevent the FBI from continuing to review documents recovered from his Florida estate earlier this month until a neutral special master can be appointed to inspect the records. Send this page to someone via email email.
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