A federal judge on Thursday deferred her verdict on former President Donald Trump’s request for an independent review of documents seized by the FBI at his Florida residence last month.
Trump’s lawyers asked Florida District Judge Aileen Cannon to appoint a special monitor to determine whether the documents contain privileged materials that should be returned to the former president.
The Justice Department opposes the request, saying it has already done its own review of the materials and that appointing a special monitor would impede its investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents.
A special reviewer is an independent third party appointed by a court in sensitive cases to review materials potentially protected by attorney-client confidentiality or other privileges to ensure any mishandling by investigators.
Cannon indicated last week that she was inclined to grant Trump’s request, but after hearing arguments from the former president’s lawyers and government prosecutors, she said she would issue a ruling “in due course.”
At stake is what will be done with more than 100 classified documents found during a search of the Mar-a-Lago residence as part of a federal investigation into how government documents got there.
Under the Presidential Records Act, Trump was required to turn over his White House records to the National Archives at the end of his term in January 2021.
The FBI is investigating potential crimes stemming from Trump’s withholding of the documents, such as violations of the Espionage Act, which makes it a felony to accumulate, transmit or lose national defense information.
The investigation began after representatives of Trump sent 15 boxes of materials to the National Archives in January 2022, almost a year after serving his term, and the agency alerted the Justice Department that it had identified more than 100 classified documents.
Seeking to prevent the FBI from examining the documents found at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s lawyers last week asked Cannon to appoint a special supervisor, arguing that the documents could be protected by attorney-client privilege or privilege. executive.
The Justice Department objected in a 36-page legal filing alleging its team had only identified a small number of documents protected under attorney-client privilege.
Justice Department lawyers said in court Thursday that the team had found 64 sets of potentially privileged materials totaling more than 500 pages.
The department has said that among the records at Mar-a-Lago were documents classified as top secret and special access program.
The US intelligence community is engaged in a harm assessment effort from withholding the Trump documents, with the Justice Department saying that appointing a special monitor would “significantly harm important government interests, including interests of National security”.
In its rejection of Trump’s claim of executive privilege over the documents, the Justice Department said they belong to the government and that Trump, as a former president, has no right to hold them.
Any independent review of the documents, the Justice Department said, must be limited to attorney-client privilege and completed by September 30.
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