Following the motion filed by the Department of Justice to continue reviewing the classified documents retrieved from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s legal team filed its opposition.
On Monday (September 12), the former President’s legal team claimed in its filing that the DOJ is attempting to “limit the scope of any review of its investigative conduct and presuppose the outcome, at least in regard to what it deems are ‘classified records.'”
The filing comes after the DOJ informed the court of its intention to appeal U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s ruling to appoint a special master to review the documents, blocking the FBI’s investigation until the review is complete. The DOJ’s appeal takes issue with the block on the investigation, seeking a “partial stay” that would allow it to continue investigating documents marked as classified.
But in its opposition, the former President’s legal team called out the investigation for being “misguided,” saying, “This investigation of the 45th President of the United States is both unprecedented and misguided.”
They continued in Monday’s filing, stating that the “core” of the investigation “is a document storage dispute that has spiraled out of control,” adding that “the Government wrongfully seeks to criminalize the possession by the 45th President of his own Presidential and personal records.”
Trump’s legal team argued that to restore “order from chaos,” the Government “should therefore not be permitted to skip the process and proceed straight to a preordained conclusion.”
It also claimed the DOJ “misinterpreted” Cannon’s ruling by assuming “‘classified records’ were disclosed to anyone.”
