Trump's lawyers continue to fight FBI review of classified Mar-A-Lago documents
The legal team representing former President Donald Trump requested Monday that a federal judge deny the Justice Department's request to continue reviewing documents marked classified that investigators seized from his Mar-a-Lago property. According to The New York Times, this move was another attempt to delay the investigation into whether Trump criminally mishandled files after his presidency.
Trump's legal team renewed their request for an independent third-party reviewer, or "special master," to be assigned to comprehensively review the documents that agents seized from Trump's Florida residence. They asked the presiding judge, Aileen M. Cannon, to uphold her order blocking FBI investigators from viewing any of the documents until the special master completes the independent review.
The lengthy filing contested the DOJ's inquiry into whether Trump or his staff illegally housed national secrets at his personal property. Trump's lawyers addressed the investigation as "a document storage dispute that has spiraled out of control," claiming that investigators are going out of their way to criminalize Trump. They also implied that officials may have leaked information about the content of the files in question, per the Times.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Prosecutors argue that the judge's order hinders the criminal investigation's progress. The group of about 100 documents that are marked as classified makes up a small percentage of the nearly 13,000 papers gathered from Mar-a-Lago during a court-sanctioned search on Aug. 8.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Theara Coleman has worked as a staff writer at The Week since September 2022. She frequently writes about technology, education, literature and general news. She was previously a contributing writer and assistant editor at Honeysuckle Magazine, where she covered racial politics and cannabis industry news.
-
How will China’s $1 trillion trade surplus change the world economy?Today’s Big Question Europe may impose its own tariffs
-
‘Autarky and nostalgia aren’t cure-alls’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Japan’s Princess Aiko is a national star. Her fans want even more.IN THE SPOTLIGHT Fresh off her first solo state visit to Laos, Princess Aiko has become the face of a Japanese royal family facing 21st-century obsolescence
-
Judge orders release of Ghislaine Maxwell recordsSpeed Read The grand jury records from the 2019 prosecution of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein will be made public
-
Miami elects first Democratic mayor in 28 yearsSpeed Read Eileen Higgins, Miami’s first woman mayor, focused on affordability and Trump’s immigration crackdown in her campaign
-
The Trump administration says it deports dangerous criminals. ICE data tells a different story.IN THE SPOTLIGHT Arrest data points to an inconvenient truth for the White House’s ongoing deportation agenda
-
Ex-FBI agents sue Patel over protest firingspeed read The former FBI agents were fired for kneeling during a 2020 racial justice protest for ‘apolitical tactical reasons’
-
Trump unveils $12B bailout for tariff-hit farmersSpeed Read The president continues to insist that his tariff policy is working
-
Trump: Losing energy and supportFeature Polls show that only one of his major initiatives—securing the border—enjoys broad public support
-
Is Trump in a bubble?Today’s Big Question GOP allies worry he is not hearing voters
-
Trump’s Comey case dealt new setbackspeed read A federal judge ruled that key evidence could not be used in an effort to reindict former FBI Director James Comey
