The U.S. Attorney’s Office refused to satisfy the request of the lawyers of former President Donald Trump to transfer the confiscated documents of their client to an independent expert. The corresponding statement was received by the base of the federal court for the Southern District of Florida on Tuesday, August 30.
It is noted that the request was denied for a number of reasons. In particular, the US authorities believe that the documents in question do not belong to Trump and are legally the property of the US government. In addition, the involvement of an independent lawyer may be an obstacle to an ongoing investigation.
The prosecutor’s response also emphasizes that the district court cannot grant the Trump team’s request for the return of confiscated materials because it does not have the necessary authority.
Earlier, the defense side demanded the appointment of an authorized lawyer to analyze the documents seized from the Mar-a-Lago estate. On August 26, they again noted that they consider it necessary to involve an independent expert. Subsequently, Florida federal judge Eileen Cannon announced her readiness to support the petition, provided that the check does not affect classified materials.
On August 8, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided Trump’s estate in connection with the Justice Department’s suspicion that the ex-president had removed official presidential documents from the Palm Beach estate.
As The New York Times later reported, about 300 secret documents were discovered by the participants in the investigative measure.
In turn, Donald Trump accused the FBI and the Department of Justice that the search warrant was heavily edited.
According to the former head of the White House, the accusations are unsubstantiated, since, as president, he had the right to declassify all papers in his possession, with the exception of materials related to the nuclear sphere. At the same time, he stated that the documents on nuclear weapons were not mentioned in the original version of the warrant.
The politician added that the FBI had no need to seize the documents and he would have given them voluntarily without any problems. The 45th President of the United States also called for the immediate publication of the materials found.
At the moment, the nature of the secret documents that the ex-head of state took with him from the White House when transferring his post to the current president of the country, Joe Biden, is not specified. What is known, however, is that the first 15 boxes Trump filed in January, nearly a year after resigning, included documents from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Agency and the FBI. According to the source of the publication, they cover many topics of interest to US national security.
#U.S #Attorneys #Office #Rejects #Independent #Examination #Trump #Documents