Lawyers for former President Donald Trump opposed the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) motion to continue reviewing documents seized by the FBI during the Mar-a-Lago raid in a filing Monday.
Trump’s team called the ongoing investigation into the documents seized at Trump’s Florida home “both unprecedented and misguided” and urged a federal judge to reject the DOJ’s request to continue reviewing the documents without a special master present.
“In what at its core is a document storage dispute that has spiraled out of control, the Government wrongfully seeks to criminalize the possession by the 45th President of his own Presidential and personal records,” the filing reads.
The DOJ appealed a ruling Thursday from U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon who granted a request to temporarily block the DOJ from further reviewing the documents seized at Mar-a-Lago until a special master could oversee the process. Trump originally sued for a special master appointment arguing the DOJ raid was politically motivated and the DOJ may “leak” documents covered by attorney-client privilege.
The seal of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is seen outside of its headquarters in Washington, DC on August 15, 2022. – (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
But Trump’s team is opposing the appeal, arguing the DOJ is seeking to “limit the scope of any review of its investigative conduct and presuppose the outcome, at least as regards to what it deems are ‘classified records,'” according to the filing.
“The Government generally points to the alleged urgent need to conduct a risk assessment of possible unauthorized disclosure of purported ‘classified records.’ But there is no indication any purported ‘classified records’ were disclosed to anyone,” the filing claims. (RELATED: Biden DOJ Pushes For Judge To Appoint Dem Donor As Special Master)
Trump argued Mar-a-Lago is a “secure, controlled access compound utilized regularly to conduct the official business of the United States during the Trump Presidency, which to this day is monitored by the United States Secret Service.”