Did FBI recover everything in its raid of Mar-a-Lago?
Lawyers for Trump locked in legal battle over whether all relevant material was handed over
Lawyers for former U.S. president Donald Trump are locked in a new legal battle over whether all critical materials sought by the Justice Department have been turned over for a sprawling investigation into whether classified documents were mishandled and laws were obstructed, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Justice Department has notified Trump’s lawyers that it isn’t sure the government has retrieved all necessary documents following multiple efforts to recover them, including subpoenas and a controversial search of Trump’s Florida resort in August, according to the people, who asked not to be named speaking about the sensitive matter.
Trump’s legal team has yet to provide the department a fulsome response, indicating bitter divides and disarray over strategy and next steps by the lawyers. Talks between the lawyers and Justice officials are ongoing and the department’s next move isn’t clear, but one option is another search.
The New York Times reported earlier on the Justice Department’s communication with Trump’s lawyers.
The investigation into the classified material and request for clarification whether there are other documents unaccounted for is being led by Jay Bratt, who heads the department’s counterintelligence and export control section.
The department has indicated in its communications with Trump’s team and in court filings that an open question in particular is whether classified material is missing from folders that were found empty but marked for holding secret documents, according to one of the people.
But the department’s communications have generated doubt and debate for Trump’s lawyers about whether the department actually knows documents are missing and wants the lawyers to make written declarations in response. Some of Trump’s lawyers apparently view that as a potential trap that could land them in legal jeopardy, further exacerbating tensions on Trump’s team.
It wasn’t clear if the department believes other documents might be located in places other than Trump’s Florida resort.
The thousands of documents recovered from Trump’s Florida home included a mix of government, business and personal affairs, including analysis about who should get a pardon, call notes marked with a presidential seal, retainer agreements for lawyers and accountants and legal bills, according to newly disclosed logs created by federal investigators.
The detailed lists of recovered materials were attached to a recently unsealed Aug. 30 report from the Justice Department. A judge had ordered the logs stay under seal but they appeared to be inadvertently posted to the public court docket. They’re no longer publicly visible.
The logs were created by a “Privilege Review Team” that divided potentially privileged material into two categories.
The first set of 137 pages consisted mostly of government records, public documents or communications from outside parties. One 39page document titled “The President’s Calls” featured handwritten notes and the presidential seal in the upper left corner.
The second list described documents that the filter team believed should be returned to Trump, including a “medical letter” to a doctor and a wide array of materials referring to Trump’s numerous legal entanglements over the years.
Trump has railed against the seizure of the documents at rallies and on his social media site, calling the FBI search an illegal raid. On Tuesday, he asked the U.S. Supreme Court to let a special master review 100 documents with classified markings that were taken by the FBI.
An appeals court had ruled those documents didn’t need to be reviewed and could be used by the Justice Department in a criminal probe of whether government records or classified information were mishandled.
In its Aug. 30 report that included the logs, the Justice Department explained to the judge how the privilege review team did the initial search at Mar-a-Lago. The team was assigned to flag documents that might be covered by attorneyclient privilege — for instance, records that referred to lawyers or legal work.
Those records were set aside and kept separate from Justice Department attorneys and FBI agents managing the criminal probe. The filter team identified 520 pages — out of what Trump’s lawyers have said is a collection of 200,000 recovered pages — that warranted a closer look, but later determined very few of those could fall under any legal privileges.
The log shows items titled “Draft 2019 immigration initiative,” “For POTUS Review” and “Executive Action to Curb Illegal Immigration.”
There was an “internal analysis” and packages of materials related to requests for presidential pardons and sentence commutations. Some of the clemency-related documents refer to initials, while others refer to full names of people who ended up receiving clemency from Trump, such as former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich.
The document titled “The President’s Calls” included a note that read, “Message from Rudy,” but it wasn’t clear if that was a reference to Trump ally Rudy Giuliani. There was an unsigned June 2017 letter from one of Trump’s law firms to former special counsel Robert Mueller, contents of a folder marked “NARA letters” — an acronym for the National Archives and Records Administration — and emails to a White House account regarding post-election legal action.