Last month, Trump’s Florida-based Mar-a-Lago was searched by the FBI to investigate the document.
West Palm Beach, USA:
A growing discord between Donald Trump and US federal investigators went to court on Thursday, following days of high-profile revelations surrounding top-secret documents seized by the FBI from his Florida home. of the former president.
Trump is asking a named outside party to re-evaluate the government’s screening of sensitive documents to determine if the documents are protected by government security procedures or are “personal information.” high” should be returned.
A federal court in Florida on Thursday said it would issue a ruling at an unspecified future time upon request, which has significantly raised the premise in the case, prompting the Justice Department to counterattack. harsh response.
Prosecutors on Tuesday revealed more evidence against the former Republican president that was recovered following a search of his Mar-a-Lago estate in South Florida last month.
Officials say they have evidence of an attempt to withhold classified documents despite a May grand jury request that Trump give the records removed from the White House in January 2021.
They note that some records are so sensitive that federal agents and Justice Department employees need to enhance their security to even review the document.
Government records also say FBI agents found classified documents in Trump’s desk drawer along with his passport.
“The location of the passports is relevant evidence in an investigation into the unauthorized storage and mishandling of defense information,” the ministry said.
The records provide the most detailed account yet of an 18-month effort to recover hundreds of classified records that were improperly brought to Mar-a-Lago when Trump left office.
And the statement of obstructing the FBI search adds legal pressure on the former president, who denies any wrongdoing.
– ‘Out of date library books’ –
In court on Thursday, one of Trump’s lawyers described the controversy as comparable to a row over an “overdue library book,” according to US media reports.
The tycoon’s legal team said an independent review of the records would increase confidence in the investigation and “cool down” the country, according to CNN.
However, prosecutors say investigators have completed sifting through the records and identified “a limited set of documents that potentially contain attorney-client privileged information,” according to The Guardian. .
Trump’s latest legal filing on Wednesday did not address the most damaging aspects of the potential government obstruction case and did not claim that he declassified documents while in office, as he did. declared outside the court.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, could scrutinize the certification his attorneys delivered to the Justice Department on June 3, falsely claiming that all records whose taxonomy has been returned.
Trump appeared to admit Wednesday in a post on his online platform Truth Social that he knew sensitive documents were contained in boxes at Mar-a-Lago at the time of the FBI search on Aug. .
His legal team said the raid was unnecessary and occurred in the “between standard give-and-take” between Trump and the National Archives of documents he was authorized to carry.
The Justice Department “unprovoked” made public information including a photograph of classified documents seized from the residence, the former president’s lawyers argued.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)
