According to one of former President Donald Trump’s attorneys, Trump is considering filing a court motion that would call for the reviewing and return of the evidence that was collected during the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s raid on his residence at Mar-a-Lago by a “special master.”
In a post on his social platform Truth Social, Trump made mention of such a motion. “A major motion pertaining to the Fourth Amendment will soon be filed concerning the illegal Break-In of my home, Mar-a-Lago, right before the ever important Mid-Term Elections,” wrote Trump. Two other people with privileged information about the discussions also confirmed the potential court filing to CBS News. According to these sources, former President Donald Trump’s legal team plans to file the motion in federal district court in Florida.
On Mark Levin’s radio show, Trump’s attorney Jim Trusty claimed that the filing would come very soon. “It’s probably going to be more like hours,” Trusty said. “It’s coming very soon.” Trusty also told Levin that the filing will claim the FBI was “overbroad” on their seizure which, according to him, violates the law’s requirement that there is “narrowness” in a search. He went on saying that former President Donald Trump’s legal team will claim that a special master is required to review the seizure and make sure no material covered by executive privilege or attorney-client privilege has been seized.
“We have privilege issues that are extremely important here,” Trusty said on Levin’s show. “We do think that one of the benefits of the special master, if the master agrees, is we can stop DOJ in their tracks when it comes to inspecting these documents.” This claim matches with one from a source close to Trump. According to CBS News, this source said the former president and his lawyers are waiting for a detailed list of what was collected to be provided to them by federal prosecutors. Allegedly, they wanted to make sure a “neutral” person would be involved in reviewing the documents recovered by the FBI.
FBI agents executed a search on Trump’s residence Mar-a-Lago where, according to the unsealed search warranty, they found and recovered 11 sets of classified documents. Boxes marked with “top secret,” “secret,” “confidential” and “top secret/sensitive compartmented information” were reportedly found by the agents. According to CBS News sources, a Trump lawyer had signed a document many weeks before the search that claimed that all classified materials had already been removed from Mar-a-Lago. The warrant also revealed that the former president is being investigated by the Justice Department for violating three criminal statutes, including the Espionage Act, reported CBS News.
Earlier this year the National Archives had found and retrieved 15 boxes that included classified material from Mar-a-Lago. Now, Trump’s lawyers seek relief under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure that govern searches, according to sources, with Trusty explicitly mentioning Rule 41(f) in his interview. This rule would have the FBI return all the items seized on an assertion that there was something in the search that was done improperly.