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Lawyers for former President Donald Trump responded Wednesday to the Justice Department in the dispute over Trump’s request for a “special teacher” for documents the FBI seized from his Mar-a-Lago property.
WASHINGTON —Former President Donald Trump argued Wednesday in a court filing that the National Archives hoped to locate classified documents among the 15 boxes Trump passed in January from Mar-a-Lago because they were presidential documents.
The filing said classified documents had been found at Mar-a-Lago, but claimed this had not been alarming and had not led to the search for Trump’s Florida apartment earlier this month.
Trump’s new case Wednesday is his platform for officially responding to prosecutors’ claims that members of his legal team engaged in “obstructive conduct” by hiding documents at his Florida compound and offering false information to investigators about how many classified documents remained.
The Justice Department said in court documents that the search was conducted after the FBI presented evidence that Trump’s team had concealed documents after claiming all classified documents were overlooked in June.
“The alleged justification for opening this thieves investigation was the alleged discovery of sensitive data involved in the 15 presidential records boxes,” Trump’s lawyers wrote. “But this ‘discovery’ was entirely expected given the very nature of the presidential archives. Simply put, the concept that presidential files involve sensitive data has never been alarming. “
Trump’s lawyers argue that, under the Presidential Records Act, the files deserve to have been intelligently tracked to ensure the recovery of presidential records, rather than referring a fraudulent investigation to the Justice Department.
The double court files are the subject of a civil lawsuit Trump filed earlier this month, as part of his bid to have a “special teacher” appointed to review documents the FBI seized at Mar-a-Lago. Federal prosecutors oppose the request, saying it would impede the investigation of ongoing criminals and the intelligence community’s review of any national security risks, and the indictment would be dismissed.
Trump filed a lawsuit early last week, 14 days after the search warrant was executed, alleging his constitutional rights were violated during the search. He demanded that a special teacher be appointed to review documents seized through the FBI at Mar-a-Lago. A special teacher is a third-party lawyer who is appointed through the courts under certain conditions, in which law firms have been raided, to read about evidence received through the government and clean up privileged documents that must remain out of reach. . researchers.
After it was noted that several key legal elements were missing from Trump’s initial trial, the trial approval ruling in the case index, the approval opinion of the Trump-appointed trial on Aileen Cannon, asked his lawyers to supplement it with more data last Friday. On Saturday, he said in an order that he was capable of appointing the special teacher, but that he would first review court documents responding to the request and hear arguments on Thursday.
The Justice Department argued in Tuesday’s filing that the appointment of a special teacher would be “unnecessary” and a resolution that would impede the investigation of the offender such as threat assessment conducted by the intelligence community. Prosecutors argued that Trump did not cross procedural thresholds. required to make the request.
The Justice Department said Trump’s situation, a situation that focuses primarily on dubious claims of executive privilege, was very different from the conditions under which special teachers were appointed. In those cases, the documents covered by the attorney-client privilege are the primary concern.
In the past, prosecutors told the court that the search had recovered “a limited set of documents” that possibly covered the attorney-client privilege. the branch said Tuesday, and the rest of the documents have already been reviewed through officials handling the case.
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