Trump was ordered to file after U.S. District Judge Eileen Cannon, the Florida judge assigned to his case seeking special counsel, found several flaws in the FBI’s initial Monday request to review the seized evidence.
In a new Friday night filing, Trump pointed to some additional legal arguments in case law that he said support his claim. One of those cases involved his former attorney, Rudy Giuliani. Trump did not say anywhere in the filing that the FBI’s search of his resort seized material dealing with attorney-client privilege.
The new answer seemed to fall short of the expansion Canon was looking for. Trump did not elaborate on what he hopes a special master — a third-party attorney — will sift through, other than general references to “privileged and privileged materials.”
He did not include filing a request for immediate action from the judge — such as a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction — in violation of the judge’s request for injunctive relief pending resolution of the motion, “including the requested relief.”
Trump said the newly released redacted affidavit the FBI submitted to the court to obtain a search warrant raised “more questions than answers.”
“The amended affidavit underscores why this motion should be granted because it does not provide any information that would allow the movant to understand why the search occurred or what was taken from his home,” Trump filed.
An amended affidavit is filed following publication
Trump’s Friday submission came hours after the Justice Department unsealed a redacted version of the affidavit used to obtain the warrant, which revealed new details about the FBI’s investigation and the highly sensitive nature of classified material previously recovered from Palm Beach. Florida, Resort.
In Trump’s challenge to the search, Cannon asked the former president’s attorneys to outline their arguments for why they can enter the court at this time, explain exactly what Trump is asking and clarify whether the judiciary is there. Trump’s special master motion granted.
Trump appointee Canon was not alone in finding that the original Monday motion lacked some of the legal elements one would expect with a request similar to the one Trump made.
Many legal experts questioned the seriousness of Trump’s bid in court after the first filing on Monday.
For one thing, Trump waited two weeks after the Aug. 8 Mar-a-Lago search was executed. He sought formal entry of the court. And his Monday filing did not include any motion — such as a preliminary injunction or temporary restraining order. Request — that would trigger the court’s speedy action.
Discussion of Trump’s legal arguments for why the judge was empowered to grant his request was thin. Much of Monday’s filing was filled with politically charged rhetoric. Among other things, Monday’s complaint bragged about Trump’s 2024 poll numbers, restated its grip on the FBI’s 2020 Trump-Russia investigation, and repeated the full text of a “message” Trump allegedly tried to deliver to Attorney General Merrick Garland through his lawyers. The country was in an “angry” mood after the raid.
Here’s what the department has to say about how Mar-a-Lago reviews evidence
Trump’s latest effort to refine his bid for a special master comes after a newly released affidavit made public new details about how the Justice Department approached the search. The FBI told the court in seeking the warrant that it plans to send a “privilege review team” of agents to Mar-a-Lago to accompany agents working on the investigation. The privilege review team will be responsible for searching a room referred to as “Office 45” and will “review the seized materials” from there to “identify and segregate documents or data containing attorney-client privileged information.”
The affidavit sets forth the procedures the Privilege Review Panel uses to filter material that contains privileged information. If the Privilege Review Panel believes that a document obtained may be privileged, it will ask the court to reconsider whether it is privileged; working with the potential concession holder to establish whether it is privileged, by seeking judicial review if necessary; Or the court process can be postponed while materials are withheld from investigators working on the case.
“At any time law enforcement personnel assigned to an investigation identify any data or documents that they believe to be attorney-client privileged, they shall cease to review such identified data or documents and refer the material for privilege review to the Privilege Review Panel for further review,” the U.S. magistrate who authorized the search said. The FBI filed the filing with Judge Bruce Reinhart.
In the affidavit, the FBI said it found 184 classified documents in 15 boxes recovered from Mar-a-Lago in January.
“Furthermore, there is probable cause to believe that additional documents are classified [National Defense Information] or presidential records subject to record retention requirements are currently on campus,” the affidavit said. “There is probable cause to believe that evidence of the contraband will be found on campus.”
This story has been updated with additional details.
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