Attorneys for former President Donald Trump on Monday filed an injunction with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida to reject the Justice Department's request to allow the continued use of documents seized by the FBI from Trump's mansion in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, for its criminal investigation.
The lawyers argue that this documentation may not have been secret, that Trump had authority to declassify documents as president and that the mansion was a safe place to guard these documents, according to the text of the injunction, published by CNN.
Trump's legal team has already managed to appoint a person outside the investigation to review the more than 10,000 documents belonging to the US government and that were in the Mar-a-Lago residence of the tycoon.
The Justice Department's lawyers have asked federal judge Aileen M. Cannon to suspend this review, warning that, if not granted before September 15, they will file an appeal to higher courts.
Cannon prohibited prosecutors from using the seized material until it is reviewed by a magistrate. This decision delays, at least temporarily, a high-profile criminal investigation into possible crimes involving the handling of classified information at the former president's Florida home and club, as well as the possible concealment, manipulation or destruction of government records.
Among the documents collected by FBI agents during the raid on the Mar-a-Lago residence in August were some confidential files that would even describe a foreign government's military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities.