Justice Department releases photo of top secret docs found at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago

The image was included in a filing made just moments before the midnight deadline set by Judge Aileen Cannon of the Southern District of Florida after approving the agency’s request to file up to 40 pages over the 20-page limit to “adequately address the legal and factual issues raised by” Trump’s team.

The photo shows a series of documents on a carpeted floor, some with “secret” or “top secret” marked on them. A box with a framed copy of Time Magazine Trump was on the cover of can also be seen in the photograph.

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The document was 36 pages long.

“Plaintiff’s motion to appoint a special master, enjoin further review of seized materials, and require the return of seized items fails for multiple, independent reasons. As an initial matter, the former President lacks standing to seek judicial relief or oversight as to Presidential records because those records do not belong to him,” prosecutors argued in the late Tuesday evening filing.

“The Presidential Records Act makes clear that ‘the United States’ has ‘complete ownership, possession, and control’ of them. Furthermore, this Court lacks jurisdiction to adjudicate Plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment challenges to the validity of the search warrant and his arguments for returning or suppressing the materials seized.”

Cannon, a Trump appointee, has already signaled her “preliminary intent” to side with Trump in the special master request and scheduled a hearing on the special master request for Thursday. The Trump team will be able to file a response before then on Wednesday.

The Justice Department argued that Trump “has shown no basis for the Court to grant injunctive relief”, and prosecutors argued the “appointment of a special master is unnecessary and would significantly harm important governmental interests, including national security interests.”

“The government’s filter team has already completed its work of segregating any seized materials that are potentially subject to attorney-client privilege, and the government’s investigative team has already reviewed all of the remaining materials, including any that are potentially subject to claims of executive privilege,” the DOJ filing also said.

MAR-A-LAGO RAID: WHAT PUNISHMENTS COULD TRUMP FACE?

Prosecutors also claimed the “appointment of a special master would impede the government’s ongoing criminal investigation and — if the special master were tasked with reviewing classified documents — would impede the Intelligence Community from conducting its ongoing review of the national security risk that improper storage of these highly sensitive materials may have caused and from identifying measures to rectify or mitigate any damage that improper storage caused.”

They added that it was the DOJ’s position that “this case does not involve any of the types of circumstances that have warranted appointment of a special master to review materials potentially subject to attorney-client privilege.”

Trump lawyer Christina Bobb then signed a document asserting that all classified material had been returned to the government, the New York Times reported. Another attachment from DOJ appeared to show that certification document, dated June 2, although the name of the signer is redacted.

Prosecutors also discussed Trump’s passports — including two official passports, one of which was expired, and one personal passport that was expired — were found in a drawer and taken by federal officials before being returned to the former president. “The location of the passports is relevant evidence in an investigation of unauthorized retention and mishandling of national defense information; nonetheless, the government decided to return those passports in its discretion,” the Justice Department said.

LINDSEY GRAHAM PREDICTS RIOTS IF TRUMP IS PROSECUTED OVER CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS

Trump-Legal-TroublesTrump’s legal team argues that their client’s constitutional rights were violated and there may have been privileged documents among those taken by federal officials, and the former president is pursuing the appointment of a special master to review independently the evidence that the FBI seized from his Mar-a-Lago home.

Last week, lawyers for Trump filed a motion requesting the appointment of a special master to assess the records, arguing that the raid of his Palm Beach golf club and winter residence was a “shockingly aggressive move.” The filing came two weeks after Trump was raided by the bureau, and a judge indicated this weekend that she was leaning toward granting Trump’s request.

The Justice Department filing on Tuesday included a lengthy justification of its investigation.

“Throughout 2021, the United States National Archives and Records Administration had ongoing communications with representatives of former President Trump in which it sought the transfer of what it perceived were missing records from his Administration,” the Justice Department said. “These communications ultimately resulted in the provision of fifteen boxes from former President Trump to NARA in January 2022.”

Prosecutors wrote: “When producing the Fifteen Boxes, 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 said the National Archives referred the case for two reasons — “evidence that classified records had been stored at the Premises until mid January 2022, and evidence that certain pages of Presidential records had been torn up.”

The department added a preliminary review by the FBI revealed “184 unique documents bearing classification markings, including 67 documents marked as CONFIDENTIAL, 92 documents marked as SECRET, and 25 documents marked as TOP SECRET.” The FBI then allegedly developed evidence that “dozens of additional boxes remained at the Premises that were also likely to contain classified information.”

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Trump claimed he declassified all the documents stored at Mar-a-Lago and denied any wrongdoing. “The DOJ and FBI are practicing Election Interference at the highest and most dishonest level our Country has ever seen before, both in the Midterms, and the 2024 Presidential Election,” he said on Truth Social on Sunday.

Trump declared that he declassified documents from the Crossfire Hurricane investigation just before he left office, but it’s unclear whether those records are part of the eclectic array of items found at Mar-a-Lago, either during the raid earlier this month or when government officials obtained documents on at least two other prior occasions.
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