Trump team slams ‘out of control’ classified doc probe in response to DOJ appeal
Attorneys for former President Donald Trump described the Justice Department’s investigation into whether the 45th president unlawfully kept classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort Monday as “a document storage dispute that has spiraled out of control.”
Trump’s legal team was responding to the Justice Department’s request that a Florida federal judge stay her Sept. 5 order calling for a neutral third party, known as a “special master,” to go over thousands of records seized by federal investigators Aug. 8.
In the 20-page filing, Trump attorney Christopher Kise called the probe “unprecedented and misguided” and said the government “wrongfully seeks to criminalize the possession by the 45th President of his own Presidential and personal records.”
Kise then argued that a delay in the investigation to allow for the special master’s review would not harm national security, as prosecutors claim.
“[T]he Government’s claims of ‘irreparable harm’ to the Government ‘and the public’ appear exaggerated,” Kise wrote, later adding: “This convenient, and belated, claim by the Government relative to enjoining the criminal team’s access to these documents only arises because the FBI concedes the Intelligence Community review is actually just another facet of its criminal investigation.”
The DOJ asked US District Judge Aileen Cannon Sept. 8 to allow investigators to continue to scrutinize 105 documents taken from Mar-a-Lago that are marked “Confidential,” “Secret” or “Top Secret.” But Kise argued Monday that “there still remains a disagreement as to the classification status of the documents.”
Kise also insisted that “there is no indication any purported ‘classified records’ were disclosed to anyone.
“Indeed, it appears such ‘classified records,’ along with the other seized materials, were principally located in storage boxes in a locked room at Mar-a-Lago, 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,” he wrote.
The Kise filing stopped short of echoing Trump’s repeated claim that he had declassified the documents take from Mar-a-Lago, but did argue that the former president “has an unfettered right of access to his Presidential records even though he may not ‘own’ them.”
“Thus, contrary to the premise behind the Government’s ‘criminal’ investigation, the determination of whether a former President timely provided documents to the National Archives and Records Administration is a civil matter,” it read.
The Justice Department said last week that if Cannon did not stay her order for a special master by Sept. 15, it would seek relief from the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Kise urged the judge to stand by her ruling, calling it a “sensible preliminary step towards restoring order from chaos.”
Late Friday, both sides of the dispute put forward their choices to scrutinize the more than 11,000 pages of records removed from Mar-a-Lago for records covered by attorney-client privilege, executive privilege or other protections.
The Justice Department nominated former federal judges Barbara Jones and Thomas Griffith for the job, while the Trump team asked for former Brooklyn US Attorney and current senior federal judge Raymond Dearie or Paul Huck Jr., a former Florida deputy attorney general.
In a separate filing Thursday, Kise objected to the government’s choices for special master, but declined to give specific reasons, saying it would be “more respectful” for the 45th president’s legal team to detail their objections privately.
The two sides of the case are at loggerheads over what the special master should be able to review, with the government saying they should neither have access to classified material nor consider claims of executive privilege. The Trump team argues the special master should have access to all the documents and scrutinize the privilege claims.
In the Monday filing, Kise suggested the FBI had taken “approximately five hundred pages of material that is likely subject to attorney-client privilege, as well as medical documents, and tax and accounting information.”
