Former President Donald Trump appeared to contradict one of his key defenses for having top secret documents at his Mar-a-Lago home in a new filing from his legal team.
The confusion was created in the Trump team’s filing in response to the DOJ’s efforts to shoot down the former president’s attempt to convince a federal judge to appoint a special master to review independently what the FBI had seized. In the filing, Trump’s team agreed that any special master who is picked would need a top security clearance to review the records.
However, that appeared to go against Trump’s defense that he declassified everything before leaving office. The confusion was pointed out by Frank Figliuzzi, a former top FBI official and a national security analyst for NBC News. The 25-year veteran of the bureau tweeted: “Trump’s response filing – ‘…We agree with DOJ that a Special Master should have a Top Secret clearance.’ Wait, I thought he declassified everything.”
DOJ MAR-A-LAGO RAID PHOTO EXPLAINED
The argument about declassification did not make it into Trump’s Wednesday evening filing. Trump’s lawyers noted Wednesday night that the former president “is amenable to certain conditions proposed by the Government” for a possible special master, including that “it would be appropriate for the special master to possess a Top Secret/SCI [Sensitive Compartmented Information] security clearance.”
The Justice Department had argued Tuesday that “the Court should not appoint a special master” but that “if the special master must be permitted to review classified documents, in order to avoid unnecessary delay, the special master should already possess a Top Secret/SCI security clearance.”
Despite it not being included in the filing, Trump claimed on social media again on Wednesday that the records seized by the FBI had been declassified.
“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. Thought they wanted them kept Secret?” Trump said on Truth Social. “Lucky I Declassified!”
PHOTO BOMB: DOJ RELEASES PIC OF TOP SECRET DOCS FOUND IN MAR-A-LAGO OFFICE
The former president has repeatedly made the declassification claims in the wake of the FBI raid.
“Number one, it was all declassified,” Trump said on Aug. 12. “Number two, they didn’t need to ‘seize’ anything. They could have had it anytime they wanted without playing politics and breaking into Mar-a-Lago.”
Trump has contended he had a “standing order” throughout his presidency that “documents removed from the Oval Office and taken to the residence were deemed to be declassified the moment he removed them.” Several former Trump administration officials have cast doubt on that notion.
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The Justice Department argued Wednesday that when Trump’s team handed over 15 boxes of records to the National Archives in January, “the former President never asserted executive privilege over any of the documents nor claimed that any of the documents in the boxes containing classification markings had been declassified.”
The DOJ further argued that, when Trump’s team handed over further records in early June, “neither counsel nor the custodian asserted that the former President had declassified the documents or asserted any claim of executive privilege.” Prosecutors claimed that “instead, counsel handled them in a manner that suggested counsel believed that the documents were classified: the production included a single Redweld envelope, double-wrapped in tape, containing the documents.”
