Trump contacts with lawyers found in seized classified documents

The US Justice Department reported Monday that it found “a limited set of materials” that could contain information about President Donald Trump’s private contacts with his attorneys that should be excluded from the US government investigation. highly classified documents that it seized three weeks ago from Trump’s Florida property.

Prosecutors, in a court filing in Florida, said they would provide more information in the coming days about what they found in the 20 boxes of materials FBI agents seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence during a search of property approved by the court.

The material taken in the authorized search on August 8 included 11 files marked with varying degrees of national security classifications that Trump took with him when his term as president ended on January 20, 2021, instead of turning them over to the National Archives as required by US law.

Attorney General Merrick Garland authorized the search, and it was approved by a federal trial judge in Florida, after prosecutors suspected that Trump had not turned over all the classified documents he had, even after turning over hundreds of pages of classified materials. to the Archives in January and June.

A search warrant authorizing FBI agents to search for the material says the government is investigating whether espionage and obstruction of justice laws were violated.

But under US criminal justice procedures, any contact, written or conversational, that Trump might have had with his lawyers would be considered privileged.

As such, such attorney-client contact information could not be used by prosecutors if the Justice Department finally takes the unprecedented step of filing criminal charges against the former president, which at this stage of the investigation is by no means a certainty.

Trump’s lawyers have also called for a special master to be appointed to review the seized material, and U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon said Saturday she was inclined to grant their request pending a new hearing on Thursday.

It was not immediately clear how the Justice Department’s review for potentially inside information about Trump’s contacts with his lawyers would affect the former president’s request for the special master to conduct essentially the same review.

In the Florida court filing Monday, prosecutors also said the Justice Department and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines’ office are reviewing classified material Trump had stored at Mar-a-Lago.

In addition, Haines has told lawmakers who oversee US intelligence affairs that his office is assessing the potential risk to national security that would have resulted from the release of material Trump had in his hands.

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