On Tuesday, the Justice Department argued that a special master was “unnecessary and would significantly harm important governmental interests, including national security interests.” The delay allowed the government to complete its initial assessment of the material - potentially rendering the request moot. Trump’s legal team, which has at times been slow to respond to the government’s actions since the search, waited weeks to even file its request for a special master, which was intended to halt the examination of the documents. That inventory, filed earlier in the day, is likely to be far more detailed than the brief list included in the search warrant unsealed at the request of Attorney General Merrick B. Tuesday’s filing, which was released minutes before a midnight deadline imposed by a federal judge, accompanied a sealed list of the documents, many of them highly classified, that Mr. Trump’s lawyers “never asserted that the former president had declassified the documents or asserted any claim of executive privilege.” But prosecutors rejected that argument and said Mr. centered on a claim that some of the documents were protected by executive privilege. Trump has claimed he had declassified all of the documents there, and his request for the appointment of an independent arbiter known as a special master to review the trove of materials seized by the F.B.I. The filing noted that “the F.B.I., in a matter of hours, recovered twice as many documents with classification markings as the ‘diligent search’ that the former president’s counsel and other representatives had weeks to perform,” a fact that it said “calls into serious question the representations made in the June 3 certification and casts doubt on the extent of cooperation in this matter.” The result was the search warrant carried out on Aug. The Justice Department obtained at least one more subpoena, for security camera footage from inside Mar-a-Lago, and the search warrant affidavit revealed that it had been working with multiple civilian witnesses. “In particular, the government developed evidence that a search limited to the storage room would not have uncovered all the classified documents at the premises.” “uncovered multiple sources of evidence indicating that the response to the May 11 grand jury subpoena was incomplete and that classified documents remained at the premises, notwithstanding the sworn certification made to the government on June 3,” the Justice Department filing said. In it, the lawyer wrote that “based upon the information that has been provided to me,” there had been a “diligent” search and all documents responsive to the subpoena were being returned.īut law enforcement officials soon developed evidence that statement was untrue. Bobb’s statement was attached to the department’s filing on Tuesday. Trump’s lawyers present during that visit “explicitly prohibited government personnel from opening or looking inside any of the boxes that remained in the storage room, giving no opportunity for the government to confirm that no documents with classification markings remained,” the filing said. agents with 38 additional documents with classified markings, including 17 labeled top secret.īut one of Mr. On May 11, department lawyers obtained a subpoena to retrieve all materials marked as classified that were not turned over by the former president. The bureau found 184 classified documents in that initial batch. Trump’s representatives to return missing records. examined 15 boxes of documents the National Archives had previously retrieved from Mar-a-Lago after months of asking Mr. The Justice Department effort began in May, after the F.B.I. Trump’s legal team and whether they had misled Justice Department officials and the F.B.I. Trump warned the former president late last year that he could face legal liability if he did not return government materials he had taken with him when he left office.Īmong the most crucial disclosures were those concerning the actions of Mr. A Previous Warning: A onetime White House lawyer under Mr.Trump’s lawyers to once again skirt the issue of whether he had declassified some of the records. Declassification Claims: Acting as the special master, Judge Dearie expressed skepticism about an attempt by Mr.
Dearie of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn. Trump’s request for an independent arbiter, known as a special master, to review the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago, appointing Judge Raymond J.
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