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| Photo Credit: AP. |
Former President Donald Trump lawyers argued in a court filing Monday that the documents seized by the FBI on August 8 at Trump’s Palm Beach estate were not classified and that Mar-a-Lago country club is secure.
Why are Trump's lawyers demanding an end to Justice Department review of Mar-a-Lago classified documents?
They asked a
federal judge to stop the Justice Department from further review of classified
records seized from the estate, adding that some of the documents marked
classified may not be secretive, The Washington Times reports.
“In what at
its core is a document storage dispute that has spiraled out of control, the
government wrongfully seeks to criminalize the possession by the 45th President
of his own presidential and personal records,” Mr. Trump’s lawyers wrote,
according to The Washington Times.
The lawyers
said it was the Justice Department prosecutors who deemed the seized documents
as “classified records”.
The attorneys
dismissed claimed by the Justice Department that the storage of the documents
at the facility by the former president constituted a national security risk
and maintained that the records could not be accessed by U.S. adversaries,
according to The Washington Times.
Is Mar-a-Lago secure?
Mar-a-Lago is
a “secure, controlled access compound utilized regularly to conduct the
official business of the United States during the Trump presidency,” the
attorneys said, according to The Washington Times.
Making a
case for the storage of the classified documents at Trump’s home, they said the
resident is monitored by the Secret Service and that the documents were stored
in a locked room, according to The Washington Times.
“The
government generally points to the alleged urgent need to conduct a risk
assessment of possible unauthorized disclosure of purported ‘classified
records.’ But there is no indication any purported ‘classified records’ were
disclosed to anyone,” Mr. Trump’s lawyers wrote, according to The Washington
Times.
They also
admitted inadvertently that the documents were classified at some point,
arguing that Mr. Trump “enjoys absolute authority” to declassify information,
noting that there is “no legitimate contention” that a president’s
declassification of documents “requires approval of bureaucratic components,”
according to The Washington Times.
Earlier the
Justice Department had requested that the U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon
temporarily suspend certain sections of her Labor Day ruing where she ruled in
favor of appointing a special master to review the thousands of documents
seized from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
Last Monday Cannon
granted a request by former President Donald Trump to appoint a special master
in a bid to review documents seized from Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida home
during a raid by FBI agents.
"The
court hereby authorizes the appointment of a special master to review the
seized property for personal items and documents and potentially privileged
material subject to claims of attorney-client and/or executive privilege,"
Judge Aileen Cannon wrote in an order Monday, Newsweek reported.
The decision
is putting a “brief pause” into investigation of Trump by the Justice
Department relating to possible violation of the Espionage Act as well as a
criminal investigation into mishandling, storage and removal of classified
records.
The
Department of Justice (DOJ) had argued that a special master was not necessary
because its officials had already completed their review of potentially
privileged documents.
Attorneys
for the former President had argued in a filing last week that “unchecked
investigators” could not be trusted to conduct a fair investigation, according
to The Washington Times.
FBI agents
seized about 11,000 documents and 1,800 other items during its raid at
Mar-a-Lago, according to The Associated Press. 100 of the documents had
classification markings.