— Washington The Justice Department disclosed in a court filing on Monday that a “small set” of materials seized by the FBI during its search of former President Donald Trump’s South Florida residence may contain information protected by attorney-client privilege.
In the filing, federal prosecutors informed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that a so-called Privilege Review Team, which is examining some of the documents seized from the former president in order to identify those that may contain privileged information, discovered “a limited set of materials that may contain attorney-client privileged information.” According to the document, the team has concluded its evaluation of the information.
The team is also following the protocols outlined in an affidavit describing the rationale for the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago this month in order to “address possible privilege challenges, if any,” wrote the U.S. Attorney in Miami and the Justice Department’s senior counterintelligence official.
In addition, the Justice Department and Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) are cDOJ: Trump search found “limited set” of possibly privileged infoonducting a classification evaluation of the Mar-a-Lago records obtained by the FBI, they stated.
Gonzalez and Bratt informed the court, “As the Director of National Intelligence advised Congress, ODNI is also leading an intelligence community assessment of the potential threat to national security posed by the revelation of these information.”
Friday, a federal magistrate court released a redacted version of the 38-page affidavit used to justify the search warrant executed by the FBI at the Florida home of the former president. The National Archives and Data Administration assessed that 15 boxes taken from the home in January contained “highly classified information interspersed with other records,” according to the FBI.
The FBI stated in their affidavit that inside the 15 boxes handed to the National Archives, 184 documents contained classification markings, including 67 marked “confidential,” 92 tagged “secret,” and 25 marked “top secret.” Mid-May, agents doing a preliminary assessment of the boxes discovered that some of the documents were marked “HCS,” or HUMINT Control System, which, according to the affidavit, “is designed to secure intelligence material collected from clandestine human sources.”
Trump has slammed the FBI’s search at Mar-a-Lago, alleging without evidence that it is a politically motivated attack by the Justice Department in advance of a possible 2024 presidential candidacy.
Trump has also asserted that some of the FBI-seized documents are protected by attorney-client privilege, and he asked Cannon last week to appoint a “special master” to assess the Mar-a-Lago records. Cannon stated in a preliminary order published on Saturday that she intends to appoint a special master in response to Trump’s request, although her decision is not yet final.
She also set a deadline of Tuesday for the Justice Department to produce a more thorough description of the property confiscated from Trump’s Palm Beach residence by the FBI.