We Have No Secrets
THE ‘O’ WORD — Just minutes before a midnight deadline, the Justice Department filed a stunning response to former President DONALD TRUMP’s request for an independent review of the documents seized from his Florida home earlier this month.
The 36-page document is chock-full of previously unknown information, providing an extensive timeline of how the government worked to recover classified material before the unprecedented search of Mar-a-Lago. It is the clearest and most detailed account yet offered of what preceded the Aug. 8 seizure and forcefully rebuts attacks from Trump and his allies — going so far to claim that “government records were likely concealed” from prosecutors and “efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation.”
The DOJ filing says Trump’s request for a special master “is unnecessary and would significantly harm important governmental interests,” dismissing it as an attempt to slow down the investigation. It also claims Trump has no standing to sue because the records belong to the government, not to him. And, notably, prosecutors placed a photo of some of the seized documents — strewn across a Mar-a-Lago carpet with their classified markings plain to see — into the public court record.
Trump and his allies have claimed executive privilege over the documents, but prosecutors rejected that assertion — arguing that executive privilege is usually invoked to protect communications from the legislative or judicial branch, not within the executive branch itself. The prosecution team, led by DOJ counterintelligence chief JAY BRATT, also points out that Trump never once asserted executive privilege or declassified the documents prior to the search.
As our Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney write, “Even if there were circumstances in which a former president could assert privilege, Bratt argues, this scenario would not come close. Intelligence officials are currently reviewing the recovered files to assess risks to national security, and any disruption to that could jeopardize the review DOJ contends.”
In an eye-popping statement that underscores how sensitive the documents were, the prosecutors write that “even the FBI counterintelligence personnel and DOJ attorneys conducting the review required additional clearances before they were permitted to review certain documents.”
An interesting nugget from NYT’s Glenn Thrush, Charlie Savage, Alan Feuer and Maggie Haberman : “The department’s decision to use a court filing as a vehicle to provide a more extensive explanation of the government’s actions — and a rebuke of Mr. Trump’s rotating roster of legal representatives — evolved over the last few days and lawyers wrangled over small details until moments before it was filed, according to people familiar with the situation.”
The most serious revelation … In the filing, the DOJ says the reason they sought a warrant to search Mar-a-Lago in the first place was only after (1) they obtained evidence that classified material was likely moved and concealed and (2) Trump’s lawyers worked to mislead the government about their cooperation in identifying and recovering the sensitive docs.
“That the FBI, in a matter of hours, recovered twice as many documents with classification markings as the ‘diligent search’ that the former President’s counsel and other representatives had weeks to perform calls into serious question the representations made in the June 3 certification and casts doubt on the extent of cooperation in this matter,” Bratt wrote, referring to an unnamed Trump rep’s affidavit.
The filing also challenges Trump allies’ claims that the former president’s team was cooperative, as WaPo’s Devlin Barrett writes : “In parts of the filing, using only their job descriptions, prosecutors paint Trump’s lawyer, EVAN CORCORAN, and custodian of records, CHRISTINA BOBB , as so uncooperative as to lead agents to suspect the Trump team might be obstructing the investigation.”
We Have No Secrets
THE ‘O’ WORD — Just minutes before a midnight deadline, the Justice Department filed a stunning response to former President DONALD TRUMP’s request for an independent review of the documents seized from his Florida home earlier this month.
The 36-page document is chock-full of previously unknown information, providing an extensive timeline of how the government worked to recover classified material before the unprecedented search of Mar-a-Lago. It is the clearest and most detailed account yet offered of what preceded the Aug. 8 seizure and forcefully rebuts attacks from Trump and his allies — going so far to claim that “government records were likely concealed” from prosecutors and “efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation.”
The DOJ filing says Trump’s request for a special master “is unnecessary and would significantly harm important governmental interests,” dismissing it as an attempt to slow down the investigation. It also claims Trump has no standing to sue because the records belong to the government, not to him. And, notably, prosecutors placed a photo of some of the seized documents — strewn across a Mar-a-Lago carpet with their classified markings plain to see — into the public court record.
Trump and his allies have claimed executive privilege over the documents, but prosecutors rejected that assertion — arguing that executive privilege is usually invoked to protect communications from the legislative or judicial branch, not within the executive branch itself. The prosecution team, led by DOJ counterintelligence chief JAY BRATT, also points out that Trump never once asserted executive privilege or declassified the documents prior to the search.
As our Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney write, “Even if there were circumstances in which a former president could assert privilege, Bratt argues, this scenario would not come close. Intelligence officials are currently reviewing the recovered files to assess risks to national security, and any disruption to that could jeopardize the review DOJ contends.”
In an eye-popping statement that underscores how sensitive the documents were, the prosecutors write that “even the FBI counterintelligence personnel and DOJ attorneys conducting the review required additional clearances before they were permitted to review certain documents.”
An interesting nugget from NYT’s Glenn Thrush, Charlie Savage, Alan Feuer and Maggie Haberman : “The department’s decision to use a court filing as a vehicle to provide a more extensive explanation of the government’s actions — and a rebuke of Mr. Trump’s rotating roster of legal representatives — evolved over the last few days and lawyers wrangled over small details until moments before it was filed, according to people familiar with the situation.”
The most serious revelation … In the filing, the DOJ says the reason they sought a warrant to search Mar-a-Lago in the first place was only after (1) they obtained evidence that classified material was likely moved and concealed and (2) Trump’s lawyers worked to mislead the government about their cooperation in identifying and recovering the sensitive docs.
“That the FBI, in a matter of hours, recovered twice as many documents with classification markings as the ‘diligent search’ that the former President’s counsel and other representatives had weeks to perform calls into serious question the representations made in the June 3 certification and casts doubt on the extent of cooperation in this matter,” Bratt wrote, referring to an unnamed Trump rep’s affidavit.
The filing also challenges Trump allies’ claims that the former president’s team was cooperative, as WaPo’s Devlin Barrett writes : “In parts of the filing, using only their job descriptions, prosecutors paint Trump’s lawyer, EVAN CORCORAN, and custodian of records, CHRISTINA BOBB , as so uncooperative as to lead agents to suspect the Trump team might be obstructing the investigation.”