Former President Trump’s legal team hastily responded to the Department of Justice’s arguments that he’s not entitled to have a "special master" to review documents taken by the FBI during a raid of his Mar-a-Lago residence.
"The United States Attorney’s Office, has filed an extraordinary document with this Court, suggesting that the DOJ, and the DOJ alone, should be entrusted with the responsibility of evaluating its unjustified pursuit of criminalizing a former President’s possession of personal and Presidential records in a secure setting,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.
The former president’s lawyers filed their argument to Florida federal district court Judge Aileen Cannon, calling out a Tuesday filing from prosecutors that included a photo of classified documents obtained from Trump’s home.
“The Government twists the framework of responding to a motion for a Special Master into an all-encompassing challenge to any judicial consideration, presently or in the future, of any aspect of its unprecedented behavior in this investigation,” Trump’s lawyers continued.
The 45th president’s legal team argues that Trump’s constitutional rights were violated and there may have been privileged documents among those taken by the FBI.
“In general, the Court should task the special master with conducting a review of all of the Seized Materials, not only those seized from the '45 Office' and identified by the Privilege Review Team as potentially privileged, to identify documents subject to the [Presidential Records Act] and attorney-client and/or executive privileges. Thereafter, the special master should have the duty of adjudicating any privilege or categorization disputes that arise between the parties,” his legal team wrote.
It is unclear what can come from the special master, however over the weekend, Cannon announced her "preliminary intent" to appoint a special master.