Lawyers for former President Donald Trump told a federal judge on Monday that the Justice Department should not be able to continue its review of classified material taken from Mar-a-Lago last month - the latest in an attempt by the former president to discredit the investigation into his mishandling of national security documents since leaving the White House.
In a new 21-page filing, Trump's lawyers characterize the investigation as "a document storage dispute that has spiraled out of control," and repeated previous claims that Trump had the ability to declassify documents while president as well as broad authority to control his records - even after he left office.
The response comes in the wake of the Justice Department filing a notice of appeal last week over a federal district court judge's controversial order granting Trump's request to appoint a third-party special master to review thousands of documents recovered from his Florida estate.
The Justice Department has argued that Trump's request for a special master "would significantly harm important government interests, including national security interests." The judge seemed to agree with the national security concerns, allowing the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to continue parts of its investigation related to "intelligence classifications and national security assessments."
The Justice Department also asked the judge to approve a partial stay that would exclude some 300 classified records from their review, arguing that the documents don't need to be reviewed by a third-party special master since Trump has no claim to classified material.
But Trump's legal team refuted that argument.
"The government's stance assumes that if a document has a classification marking, it remains classified irrespective of any actions taken during President Trump's term in office," they wrote. "There is no legitimate contention that the chief executive's declassification of documents requires approval of bureaucratic components of the executive branch. Yet, the government apparently contends that President Trump, who had full authority to declassify documents, 'willfully' retained classified information in violation of the law."
The Justice Department has also taken pains to underscore the potentially serious ramifications of keeping sensitive documents at his personal residence, and that as a result of pausing its investigation the intelligence community's review of the documents has halted as well.
Trump's lawyers pushed back on that assertion, too.
"There is no indication any purported 'classified records' were disclosed to anyone," they wrote. "Indeed, it appears such 'classified records,' along with the other seized materials, were principally located in storage boxes in a locked room at Mar-a-Lago, a secure, controlled access compound utilized regularly to conduct the official business of the United States during the Trump Presidency, which to this day is monitored by the United States Secret Service."
While the delay is strategically advantageous to Trump, it could also result in the investigation ripening in late October ahead of the midterm elections, which could pose a major problem for Republicans whose chances of regaining control of both chambers of Congress have been significantly curtailed in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and a series of recent legislative wins for Democrats.
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