Washington, DC — The Justice Department acknowledged in a court filing Monday that a “small set” of documents seized by the FBI during its search of former President Donald Trump’s South Florida residence may contain information protected by attorney-client privilege.
In the filing, federal prosecutors told U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that a so-called Privilege Review Team, which is examining documents seized from the former president to identify those that may contain privileged information, discovered “a limited set of materials that potentially contain attorney-client privileged information.” According to the document, the team has finished reviewing the materials.
The team is also following procedures outlined in an affidavit detailing the justification for the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago earlier this month to “address potential privilege disputes, if any,” wrote Juan Antonio Gonzalez, the U.S. Attorney in Miami, and Jay Bratt, the Justice Department’s top counterintelligence official.
According to the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the FBI’s papers obtained from Mar-a-Lago are being classified.
“As the Director of National Intelligence informed Congress, the ODNI is also leading an intelligence community assessment of the possible danger to national security that might arise from the revelation of these information,” Gonzalez and Bratt testified in court.
A redacted version of the 38-page affidavit used to justify the FBI’s search warrant at the former president’s Florida home was released by a federal magistrate judge on Friday. The National Archives and Papers Administration assessed that 15 boxes taken from the premises in January contained “highly sensitive information jumbled with other records,” according to the FBI.
According to the FBI’s complaint, 184 documents in the 15 boxes delivered to the National Archives contained classification markings, including 67 marked “confidential,” 92 tagged “secret,” and 25 marked “top secret.” Agents doing a preliminary inspection of the boxes in mid-May discovered that some of the documents were labeled “HCS,” or HUMINT Control System, which is “intended to secure intelligence material collected from clandestine human sources,” according to the affidavit.
Trump has slammed the FBI’s investigation of Mar-a-Lago, claiming that it is a politically motivated attack by the Justice Department ahead of a possible presidential run in 2024.
Trump has also claimed that some of the documents obtained by the FBI are protected by attorney-client privilege, and last week he requested Cannon to appoint a “special master” to evaluate the materials seized from Mar-a-Lago. Cannon stated her “preliminary desire to appoint a special master” in response to Trump’s request in a preliminary order issued Saturday, though her decision is not yet final.
She also gave the Justice Department until Tuesday to provide a more specific description of the property taken by the FBI from Trump’s Palm Beach house.
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