Attorneys for Donald Trump argued in a new court filing on Tuesday that the former president’s handwritten notes on classified documents mean they are covered by executive privilege.
Lawyers were responding to the Department of Justice’s appeal to resume the criminal investigation of classified documents seized by the FBI during a search at Mar-a-Lago last month.
Agents seized more than 11,000 documents during the search including 54 marked “secret” and 18 “top secret.” Additionally, there were 48 empty folders which had “classified banners,” and 42 folders were marked with “return to staff secretary/military aide.”
On Thursday, US District Judge Aileen Cannon refused to stay her own special master order appointing Judge Raymond Dearie as a third party to review records seized by the FBI for materials that could be privileged and kept from federal investigators.
However, the DOJ argued that Trump “has no claim for the return of those records, which belong to the government and were seized in a court-authorized search.”
“The records are not subject to any possible claim of personal attorney-client privilege,” they added. Also federal lawyers have already identified more than 500 pages of medical, tax, personal and other records covered by attorney-client privilege and returned them to Trump.
In their response on Tuesday, attorneys for Trump said his handwritten notes on some of the documents could mean they should remain confidential under executive privilege as they “could certainly contain privileged information.”
Trump’s attorneys argued that this is a matter that could be resolved with a special master reviewing the documents.
A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals will consider the case.
