Comment In separate and conflicting legal filings unsealed Monday, Donald Trump’s lawyers and the Justice Department once again argued over whether the former president could claim documents from his time in the White House — with Trump saying that most of the materials were “personal” and with the government saying, in essence, absolutely not. Trump’s team argued that most of the 13,000 unclassified documents seized by the FBI at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida estate, belonged to the former president and that the federal government had no right to review the documents. confiscated materials. His lawyers said Trump had the right to designate presidential documents as personal under the Presidential Records Act. The Department of Justice, however, criticized this interpretation of the law as “unworthy”. To say a president could simply mark presidential documents as personal would run counter to the very purpose of the federal act, the Justice Department wrote in its op-ed. Under the Presidential Records Act, the direct staff of the president, vice president and anyone advising the president must preserve records and telephone calls related to official duties. Trump’s team argued that, as president, he did not have to document that he changed the classification of the seized materials from presidential to personal. “President Trump does not need to produce documentary evidence of his appointment decisions because his conduct has unequivocally confirmed that he treated the material in question as personal records and not as presidential records,” his lawyers wrote. The legal filings were submitted to Raymond J. Dearie, the court-appointed special master ordered by a federal judge in Florida to review materials seized from Trump’s Florida residence and private club and determine whether be protected from criminal investigators due to executive or attorney-client privilege. The purpose of the filings was for the parties to present the major issues and disputes they believe Dearie should address in his review. The Trump Mar-a-Lago investigation is proceeding on two tracks: One public and one private Ultimately, if Dearie finds that Trump had privilege or a personal claim to certain documents — and U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon agrees with his recommendations — criminal investigators will not be allowed to see that material as part of their investigation . The Justice Department is investigating Trump’s possession of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago long after he left office and despite subpoenas and other efforts by the federal government to get the materials back. While Dearie is only reviewing unclassified state records found in the Aug. 8 search, the Justice Department said those documents are critical to the investigation and could help them interview witnesses and corroborate evidence. In its interview with Dearie, the Justice Department wrote that the filing by Trump’s lawyers “doubles the total rewrite of [Presidential Records Act] which has no basis in its text or purpose. Plaintiff appears to make this argument on the premise that characterizing a document as “personal” somehow precludes the government from examining it. He’s wrong on both counts.” Even if the documents were personal, the Justice Department said, law enforcement is allowed to access personal material in criminal investigations. “Nothing in the law prohibits the government from using documents recovered in an investigation if they are “personal,” and Plaintiff offers no authority to suggest otherwise,” the Justice Department argued. Investigators see ego, not money, as Trump’s motivation for withholding classified documents Prosecutors also criticized Trump’s team for appearing to abandon its earlier legal argument that, as a former president, Trump could invoke executive privilege over the seized materials. Instead, prosecutors said, Trump’s team reversed course and argued it could simply treat the material as personal. Trump’s lawyers rejected that frame in their filing and said that even if Deary disagreed with his reading of the Presidential Records Act, the former president would still have a claim to those documents because of executive privilege. “The question now before the Special Master is therefore whether a President has the authority to decide whether a document is a ‘presidential record’ or a ‘personal record,’” Trump’s team wrote. “Both the plain language of the PRA and prior judicial decisions answer this question in the affirmative.” Mary McCord, who served as deputy attorney general for national security during the Obama administration, disputed that reading of the Presidential Records Act. “These are set terms,” McCord said of the act. “And it’s not defined as something that the president says is personal.” The Justice Department earlier won an appeal that excluded the 103 documents marked as classified by Dearie’s review, giving federal investigators immediate access to those materials for their criminal investigation. The Department’s appeal to overturn the entire special master designation is pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.
