Former Florida solicitor general Chris Kise has been hired by the former president, who spent Tuesday blasting the FBI after pushing for a rematch of the 2020 election.
During his transition, Kise provided advice to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a function he previously performed for former Governor Rick Scott.
Chris Kise, a former Florida solicitor general, has been added to former president Donald Trump’s legal team.
SeDantis is seen as one of Trump’s most formidable foes in the race for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
The Justice Department is getting ready to submit a lengthy legal opinion criticizing Trump’s request for a “special master” to sort through his claims of executive privilege regarding 15 boxes of documents he returned from his exclusive Florida club. NBC was the first to report the news of the hire.
The newest member of Trump’s legal team, according to the network, has earned a “reputation as a sharp political knife fighter.”
The appointment follows US District Judge Eileen Cannon’s ‘preliminary intent’ to accept Trump’s request for a special master, which she hinted over the weekend.
Former President Donald Trump has brought on a new lawyer as he fends off a federal investigation that led to the search of Mar-a-Lago by FBI agents
Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran exchanged letters with National Archives officials over documents
On Monday night, Trump attorney Jim Trusty downplayed the government’s preservation of papers, likening it to a late library book.
After submitting an uncontested motion Monday night to twice the customary length of its answer to 40 pages, the DOJ was preparing to submit a scathing rebuttal on Tuesday.
The extra space was required in order to “adequately address the legal and factual problems” brought up by Trump’s team.
That comes as several legal professionals criticized the demand made by Trump’s current legal team in his lawsuit, saying that it would be difficult for a third party to evaluate a former president’s assertion of executive privilege.
Trump has criticized the FBI over the Mar-a-Lago raid on several occasions.
The National Archives has made it plain that it thinks the privilege belongs to President Biden in communication with Trump’s attorneys.
In a brief, the government claims that a “filter team” of FBI agents has finished looking through the 15 boxes of documents taken from Mar-a-Lago that could be protected by the attorney-client privilege.
Judge Cannon also requested a more thorough accounting from the Justice Department of what was seized from Mar-a-Lago, which the government promised to undertake.
The DOJ is looking into probable breaches of the Espionage Act. After agents removed hundreds of pages of secret documents from Mar-a-Lago, the law now controls the taking and storage of such documents.
The fact that government attorneys urged Trump to return records and then subpoenaed them before agents arrived at Mar-a-Lago while Trump was gone suggests that investigators are also looking into possible obstruction.
Trump has consistently criticized the search as being politically motivated, and on Monday night, his attorney Jim Trusty downplayed the preservation of government-owned materials.
He cited the government’s request to upgrade the lock on a storage room where papers were being kept, which was made during a visit in June and disclosed in correspondence that was released by another court.
Trusty told Fox News that there was a “chronology of collaboration” and that it revealed a “accommodating” administration.
Five days later, the Department of Justice offered the following piece of advice: “Hey, please lock the door.” That, in my opinion, is not the subject of a critical nuclear espionage inquiry. That would be the content of a late library book.
Since his election and victory, Trump has gone through a number of attorneys.
Before the Florida and U.S. Supreme Courts, Kise has successfully argued and won cases.