Prosecutors: Trump Has No Business Asking For Docs Back Because They’re Not His
Prosecutors told a federal judge late Tuesday that former President Donald Trump has no business asking for the documents taken from his Mar-a-Lago home earlier this month because they’re not his.
“The former President lacks standing to seek judicial relief or oversight as to Presidential records because those records do not belong to him,” read a brief filed by the Department of Justice’s head of counterintelligence, Jay Bratt, and the U.S. Attorney for South Florida, Juan Gonzalez.
The argument came in a 36-page brief the Department of Justice filed in Trump’s lawsuit to have a “special master” review dozens of boxes of documents seized by the FBI during the Aug. 8 search of his Mar-a-Lago home.
Trump is asking Judge Aileen Cannon to appoint a “special master” to review the documents taken from Mar-a-Lago under a search warrant, which came after Trump refused to turn over highly classified documents he took with him from the White House.
Prosecutors said that Cannon lacks the jurisdiction to that, but that even if she did, doing so would hurt the investigation and jeopardize the nation. “Appointment of a special master is unnecessary and would significantly harm important governmental interests, including national security interests,” Bratt and Gonzalez wrote.
“Appointment of a special master would impede the government’s ongoing criminal investigation and — if the special master were tasked with reviewing classified documents — would impede the Intelligence Community from conducting its ongoing review of the national security risk that improper storage of these highly sensitive materials may have caused and from identifying measures to rectify or mitigate any damage that improper storage caused.”
An FBI agent’s redacted affidavit released last week showed that investigators are looking at whether Trump violated a number of federal laws dealing with official and classified records.
FBI agents searched Trump’s tennis and social club in Palm Beach on Aug. 8 and took away boxes of material, including 11 packets of classified documents. Among that set was a batch labeled with the highest classification markings, meant for review only in secure government facilities.
Trump, who had already been attacking the FBI and prosecutors for investigating his actions on and leading up to his Jan. 6, 2021, coup attempt, has ramped up criticism of law enforcement since then.
His followers have responded by threatening FBI agents and the Department of Justice, and one Trump supporter was already killed in a shootout with police after he tried to attack the FBI field office in Cincinnati.
In addition to the federal criminal investigations, a Georgia prosecutor is separately investigating Trump and his allies’ attempts to coerce state officials into falsely declaring him the winner in that state.
Trump, despite losing the election by 7 million votes nationally and 306-232 in the Electoral College, became the first president in more than two centuries of elections to refuse to hand over power peacefully. His incitement of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol — his last-ditch attempt to remain in office ― killed five, including one police officer, injured another 140 officers and led to four police suicides.
Nevertheless, Trump remains the dominant figure in the Republican Party and is openly speaking about running for the presidency again in 2024.
In statements on his personal social media platform, Trump has continued to lie about the election and the Jan. 6 committee’s work, calling it a “hoax” similar to previous investigations into his 2016 campaign’s acceptance of Russian assistance and his attempted extortion of Ukraine into helping his 2020 campaign.
