(West Palm Beach) A US judge on Thursday considered Donald Trump’s request to appoint an independent expert to review documents seized by the FBI during searches of his Florida home, without announcing a decision for now. If only some of them could be kept confidential.
Posted yesterday at 5:16 pm.
Eileen Cannon, a federal magistrate appointed by Donald Trump in 2020, heard from Republican lawyers and Justice Department officials at a hearing in West Palm Beach, Florida.
She said she would later decide on the independent third-party appointment the former president wants, without further details on the date of the announcement, according to reports from several American media outlets.
Christopher Kiss, one of Mr Trump’s lawyers, was quoted by CNN as saying the appointment of an independent expert would boost confidence in the investigation and foster “less tension” in the country.
Department representatives argued that, because he was no longer president, Mr. Trump could not sue to keep the documents.
Ever since the stunning and unprecedented police operation for a former US head of state conducted by the FBI on August 8 in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, Donald Trump has been railing against the repeated action, calling it “illegal and unconstitutional”. Targeted for political reasons.
Trump, who has more publicly flirted with the idea of a new candidacy in 2024, has therefore asked Justice to appoint an expert to review the seized documents and determine whether they can be returned to him or classified as “secret.” Therefore it cannot be used in the investigation against him.
The Justice Department strongly opposes such an appointment, saying it could block investigators’ access to documents and seriously undermine government interests, including national security.
According to a department document, highly classified texts seized from the former president’s home were “probably hidden” to thwart a federal police investigation targeting him.
In January, the former president’s teams handed over 15 boxes of documents he took when he left the White House to the National Archives Agency, which is responsible for recording presidential activities for history.
After examining these boxes, the FBI, convinced that Donald Trump had kept other classified documents under inappropriate conditions in Florida, decided to seize and search about thirty other boxes of documents on the occasion.
Investigators suspect the Republican violated the American Espionage Act, which strictly regulates the possession of classified documents. Donald Trump has assured that he has declassified these documents.
Investigations are also targeting his efforts to manipulate the results of the 2020 presidential election and his role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol by his supporters.
Currently he is not being tried in any case.
