(PresidentialWire.com)- Former President Donald Trump demanded that his lawyers get his documents back from federal law enforcement in the weeks following the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid.
According to two people who knew the situation, Trump wasn’t just talking about the purported cache of attorney-client records he claims the federal government seized during the raid. The former president has requested that his staff figure out a method to recover “all” of the government records that Trump has long claimed are “mine,” including the highly private and top-secret ones.
Trump-related sources concur with outside legal experts that such a broad legal move would be at best improbable. One of Trump’s advisers said he hates to break it to Trump, but he does not think he will get all the top-secret information back. Most likely, that ship has sailed.
Additionally, a number of seasoned Trump aides said they have zero interest in the now-famous boxes of papers because they fear that even knowing about them may trigger an unwanted visit from the federal government. Who would desire any of that to be returned? Keep them far away if it is what they claim it to be, advises a second adviser.
Even yet, the former president’s legal counsel is attempting to get back at least some of the documents taken during the nationwide search on August 8. According to the sources, the Trump team, directed by former federal prosecutor Evan Corcoran, has been secretly preparing new legal arguments and techniques to try to get the government to turn over information taken from the former president’s home and club in Florida.
These steps entail creating a “Rule 41(g) motion,” which, following the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, enables “a person aggrieved by an unlawful search and seizure of property” to “move for the property’s restoration.”
This would be a follow-up action to the complaint that Trump and his lawyers filed on Monday, which demanded the appointment of a special master to examine the Mar-a-Lago files for possibly privileged information. Uncertainty surrounds the timing of the ex-attorney’s president’s upcoming motion, which Trump associates anticipate will be more focused than what the ex-president appears to want.
Donald Trump’s request for a special master to review items taken from Mar-a-Lago has been described as “totally bad” and “unlikely to succeed” by criminal defense lawyer Ken White.
White said, “he would have to demonstrate that those items were illegally taken, which, given what we know, will be very challenging to do.”
Judge Aileen Cannon has not yet decided on the President’s requests for a 41(g) move.
