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| Photo Credit: AP. |
The Justice Department said former President Donald Trump “concealed and removed” classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home in direct violation of a grand jury subpoena.
In a filling
Tuesday night, the Justice Department lawyers dismissed allegations by former
Trump’s team that “diligent search” and all documents requested under subpoena
were returned, The Washington Times reports.
Mr. Trump
had filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to appoint a “special master” to
review documents seized in the raid by FBI agents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate
on August 8 and return to him any documents that were protected under
attorney-client privilege.
Responding
to the suit, the Justice Department said Mr. Trump was not cooperative and
acted to obstruct the investigation into whether he mishandled classified government
documents, according to The Washington Times. The Justice Department opposed a
special master, a neutral third party to decide which documents are privileged.
“The
government also developed evidence that government records were likely
concealed and removed from the storage room and that efforts were likely taken
to obstruct the government’s investigation,” Justice Department attorneys wrote,
according to The Washington Times.
On June 3,
attorneys for Mr. Trump certified that the former president had returned all of
the documents covered under subpoena, which sought all classified materials
remaining at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
Lawyers for
the Justice Department wrote that FBI agents seized more than 33 boxes
containing 187 classified materials during the August 8 search, including
classified document stored in desks in Mr. Trump’s office, according to The
Washington Times.
“That the
FBI, 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 calls into serious
question the representations made in the June 3 certification and casts doubt
on the extent of cooperation in this matter,” the Justice Department attorneys
wrote, according to The Washington Times.
Trump had
said in the wake of the Mar-a-Lago seizures that he had declassified all the documents
seized by FBI agents. He initially said the discovery of the documents were a “hoax”
and a “scam”. He accused the FBI of staging the “haphazardly” scattered
documents around his office to frame him on his Truth Social.
“Terrible the
way the FBI, during the raid of Mar-a-Lago, threw documents haphazardly all
over the floor (perhaps pretending it was me that did it!), and then started
taking pictures of them for the public to see,” he wrote, according to The
Washington Times.
Mr. Trump is
facing criminal investigation relating to violations of the Espionage Act and other
federal crimes associated with the mishandling or removal of classified
government documents.
An FBI team who
reviewed documents seized during the Mar-a-Lago raid concluded that a “limited”
number of records may be protected under attorney client privilege, according
to The Washington Times.
Much of the documents
removed from Trump’s residence were taken by the former president from the
White House in the waning days of his administration.