FBI agents have already ruled that some Mar-a-Lago records are protected by attorney-client privilege, undermining Trump’s plea for a special mastermind.
Friday, the Department of Justice released a heavily redacted document justifying the Mar-a-Lago raid.
14 of the 15 boxes taken from the Florida residence earlier this year contained classified information, according to an affidavit.
Trump returned 184 classified documents, including 67 sensitive and 25 top secret, to the National Archives.
FBI feared unsecured DNI ‘clandestine human sources’ information. Avril Haines told legislators that her office would conduct an evaluation.
Justice Department will be involved as well
Materials withheld from public view reflect the contours of an obstruction probe.
Biden is spending the weekend in Wilmington following the release of a bombshell.
Saturday evening, Judge Aileen Cannon disclosed her purpose.
She instructed the Justice Department to provide a’more thorough’ receipt of the agents’ findings at Trump’s club.
The judge nominated by Trump wants an answer to his request by Tuesday.
A ‘filter team’ of FBI agents sifting through 15 boxes of documents seized from Mar-a-Lago has already concluded its evaluation of material that may be protected by attorney-client privilege and has informed a judge that they will provide a more in-depth analysis of the material they eliminated.
Following a federal district judge’s ‘preliminary intent’ to grant former President Donald Trump’s request for a’special master’ to review the documents, this information will remain under seal.
In response to her weekend order, the government wrote to US District Judge Eileen Cannon, “The Privilege Review Team has discovered a small number of documents that may include attorney-client private information.”
US Attorney Antonio Gonzalez and Justice Department official Jay Bratt wrote that the team has “finished its analysis of those materials and is currently pursuing the processes… to handle any potential privilege disputes.”
They added that they will comply with the judge’s direction to give a’more thorough Receipt for Property’ for items confiscated from former President Donald Trump on August 8 pursuant to a search warrant.
The government’s progress report on its efforts to review the seized materials comes after Trump filed a lawsuit and demanded the appointment of a’special master’ to fulfill a comparable duty.
Some former prosecutors questioned what exactly such a person would do, citing a lack of precedent for a third party to sort through a former president’s claims, which included a broader executive privilege claim that presidents typically invoke when shielding documents from Congress while in office.
U.S. District Judge Eileen Cannon issued a preliminary order indicating her intent to appoint a special master to review Mar-a-Lago documents.
Given what the government has already disclosed about the quantity of materials discovered at Mar-a-Lago after a subpoena and subsequent search warrant, this individual would require a top-level security clearance.
The letter also mentions a “classification review” being conducted by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
The letter is a response to U.S. District Judge Eileen Cannon’s ‘intention’ to grant Trump’s request to have a special master review records.
Saturday evening, Judge Cannon issued her preliminary decision, only hours after the Justice Department released a redacted version of the affidavit that supported the search warrant executed by FBI agents on August 8.
This document shed new light on the cache of sensitive materials housed at the former president’s club, including information that could endanger “clandestine human sources.”
Trump argued that his Fourth Amendment rights were infringed in a case filed in the Southern District of Florida. Judge Cannon issued her ruling in response.
The administration complied with a judge’s request for a more comprehensive list of papers taken from Mar-a-Lago.
A ‘filter team’ has finished reviewing documents that may compromise attorney-client privilege.
The letter also mentions a “classification review” being conducted by the office of the Director of National Intelligence.
However, she stunned some legal experts by indicating her preference before hearing the government’s opposing arguments. It is also unclear whether the Department of Justice has been served in this matter.
She scheduled a hearing for September 1 and stated that her ruling was not a “final determination.”
She also instructed DOJ, the defendant in this instance, to give a “more thorough report” of “all property seized” in accordance with the search order.
Agents recovered not only highly secret materials, but also handwritten memos, according to the redacted affidavit. Some of the documents were stored alongside other items.
Online legal experts criticized Trump’s initial lawsuit for neglecting to include exhibits or sworn statements and for exposing Trump’s complaints with the Russia investigation.
“The Government has long treated President Donald J. Trump unfairly,” states one of the lawsuit’s subject headings.
The Trump-appointed judge, who will be confirmed in 2020, pressed Trump’s attorneys last week to specify the’specific relief sought’ in their request for a special master.
The judge issued a “preliminary ruling” and requested a response from the administration by Tuesday.
She instructed DOJ to offer a’more thorough’ account of what was seized.
Trump’s staff was evasive while expressing its desire for independent rulings on “protected and potentially privileged materials.” Trump is not a lawyer, but third parties are sometimes chosen to look through papers that may be protected by attorney-client privilege.
Then, on Friday, Trump’s attorneys filed a new motion requesting the appointment of a special master to sort through the confiscated evidence. His counsel said that the redacted affidavit supported the argument for a special master since it “provides almost no information that would allow Movant to comprehend why the raid occurred or what was taken from his residence.”
Trump has been infuriated by the seizure of his executive privilege-protected documents, and he has lambasted agents for seizing three passports, which were returned to the government once they were discovered among the items agents seized.
The latest legal development in the Trump tale, which occurred on Saturday, elicited skepticism from several legal experts.
‘Leaving aside the extent to which Judge Cannon will accommodate Trump, the appointment of a special master has no bearing on Trump’s potential responsibility or the legitimacy of the DOJ’s probe. Steve Vladek, a legal professor at the University of Texas, noted that the issue is the possible repatriation of *some* of the seized materials.
The ‘preliminary order’ was issued on the same day it was revealed that Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told Congress that the U.S. intelligence community will conduct a damage assessment of the cache of classified documents held at former President Trump’s Florida golf club for over a year.
The guarantee, included in a letter to the chairs of the House Oversight Committee and the House Intelligence Committee, is the first sign that the Biden administration will evaluate the potential national security threats.
The lawsuit notes that Mar-a-Lago is a historic house with 58 bedrooms and 33 baths situated on 17 acres of ground spanning from the Atlantic Ocean to the Intracoastal Waterway. A DOJ officer was shown a storage room containing both federal documents and apparel.
The lawsuit requests that a special master supervise the records taken during the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago and identifies Donald Trump as the “obvious frontrunner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary.”
Avril Haines, director of national intelligence, told two congressional committees that her office will perform a ‘evaluation of the potential harm to national security’ posed by the publication of documents returned from Mar-a-Lago.
It follows the publication on Friday of a heavily redacted document indicating that 15 crates of documents returned from Mar-a-Lago contained 184 classified documents, 67 sensitive documents, and 25 top-secret documents.
Included in the cache were documents that could endanger “clandestine human sources” – the type of information that could represent a grave threat to those who provide classified information to the United States government.
In a letter dated Friday, Haines informed the two panel chairs that her office will perform a “assessment of the potential danger to national security posed by the disclosure of the relevant materials.”
The unsealed affidavit, according to the two committee chairmen, “confirms our significant worry that among the papers housed at Mar-a-Lago were ones that potentially imperil human sources.” It is imperative that the [Intelligence Community] work rapidly to analyze and, if necessary, remediate the damage caused, a process that should run concurrently with the DOJ’s criminal probe.
Maloney ratcheted up the demand for a review on Friday when she tweeted that Trump’s’reckless handling of our nation’s most sensitive papers placed our national security in severe jeopardy and flagrantly violated the Presidential Records Act.’
She said it made such an examination ‘much more urgent.’
Schiff tweeted on Friday, ‘It is evident from the redacted affidavit that Trump maintained highly classified national security material at a public resort. As if that wasn’t scary enough, some of the documents weren’t even in folders; they were simply mixed in with news clippings and other detritus. The IC must immediately conduct a damage assessment.
Trump lives in the luxury club Mar-a-Lago. Paid members are permitted to bring friends, attend events, and even host weddings.
The PRECISES are not authorized to hold classified material, according to newly declassified documents.
Politico revealed the letter dated Friday for the first time on Saturday.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Vice President Joe Biden both emphasized the independence of the Justice Department and insisted the White House had no prior knowledge of the FBI’s August raid on Mar-a-Lago. The White House declined to comment on whether the daily revelations of hundreds of government documents held at Mar-a-Lago posed a security risk.
Jean-Pierre stated that no one in the White House was briefed on the situation.
The new review will involve intelligence officers and attorneys from the Justice Department to go through documents to determine if any secrets were compromised during their storage at a club. Haines’s letter implies that a Justice Department team distinct from the agency’s criminal investigators working on the investigation will be utilized.
President Joe Biden is spending the weekend in Wilmington. He criticized the Trump camp’s assertions of classification power as invalidating the issue.
Former President Donald Trump criticized the FBI and the judge who authorized the search warrant for his Florida residence.
The Department of Justice has released the redacted affidavit detailing the events leading up to the search on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in August. According to the affidavit, 14 of the 15 boxes collected earlier this year contained sensitive information.
The explanations provided by the DOJ for the redactions were similarly highly redacted.
The documents depict a multi-month period in which Mar-a-Lago sought the National Archives to return government documents.
Biden derided on Friday a claim by members of the Trump campaign that the president has the right to declassify information, which would eliminate any legal problems.
The search warrant revealed that the FBI was examining Espionage Act provisions concerning the removal and destruction of government records. The affidavit records indicate that the government may rely on authorities other than those solely concerned with whether or not the government was classified.
I’ve declassified everything in the world, is all I ask. I’m President. I am capable — Come on! Did you declassify everything? Biden stated as he prepared to depart town on Friday.
“I will make no comment. I mean, because I am unaware of the specifics. I’m not even interested. I’ll have the Department of Justice handle that,’ Biden added.
According to the letter from Haines, the Justice Department and her office “are cooperating to assist a classification assessment of relevant materials, including those seized during the search.”
She stated that it would be conducted in a manner that “does not unnecessarily interfere with DOJ’s current criminal investigation.”
The commitment of Haines coincides with fresh information revealed by the documents that US Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart ordered to be made public.
The files include a precise tally of the amount of sensitive or secret information maintained for more than a year at the private club.
Trump had 184 classified documents, 67 confidential, 25 top secret, and handwritten notes in boxes returned to the National Archives, according to a letter stating that the FBI had “reasonable grounds to suspect evidence of obstruction would be discovered” at his Florida residence.
Additionally, the FBI conducted the search out of concern that the leaking of classified documents could damage “secret human sources.”
The signing agent’s affidavit states, “Based on my training and experience, I am aware that papers classified at these levels frequently contain NDI,” using the acronym for National Defense Information. ‘Several of the documents also contained what appear to be handwritten notes from the President,’ the agent stated, referring to Trump.
A ‘preliminary triage’ found that agents observed documents bearing the markings ‘HCS, FISA, ORCON, NORORN, and SI.’
Each of these abbreviations refers to a distinct category of information that the government must be protected in a certain manner.
DOJ adds that “HUMINT Control Systems” (HCS) refers to material “intended to protect intelligence information collected from clandestine human sources, usually known as human intelligence.”
The purpose of the ‘Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’ or FISA information is to safeguard information from abroad information collection techniques.
The Department of Justice stated that it censored extensive amounts of the records to protect the identities of civilian witnesses and personnel of law enforcement, including FBI agents, and out of concern that it might “erode trust” in the government’s investigation.
The letter states, “In essence, the government has well-founded worries that efforts could be taken to impede or otherwise interfere with this investigation if facts in the statement were published prematurely.”
According to the affidavit, Trump’s Florida residence lacked a secure location to store the documents, so agents ordered him to lock the basement where they had been stored.
On Truth Social, he sent out a lengthy message beginning with the phrase “Affidavit substantially redacted!!!
Trump added, “Nothing mentioned on “Nuclear,” a blatant public relations ruse by the FBI and DOJ, or our close working relationship with regard to document handover – WE GAVE THEM MUCH.”