Washington — The Justice Division filed a 36-page response late Tuesday night time to former President Donald Trump’s request for a federal choose to nominate a 3rd social gathering to sift by means of the information seized at his Florida residence. The federal government alleges that “obstructive conduct” occurred at Mar-a-Lago after Trump’s authorized group allegedly tried to hide or take away sure information from investigators within the months main as much as the Aug. eight search.

Within the submitting, federal prosecutors argued that Trump’s request for a particular grasp to evaluation the information seized within the search “fails for a number of, impartial causes,” and so they accused the previous president of leveling “wide-ranging meritless accusations” in opposition to the U.S. authorities within the movement he filed final week.  

The appointment of a particular grasp, they mentioned, “is pointless and would considerably hurt necessary governmental pursuits, together with nationwide safety pursuits.”

Among the many filings submitted to the courtroom is a redacted FBI picture — taken throughout the Aug. eight search of Mar-a-Lago, the Justice Division mentioned — of information recovered from a container in Trump’s workplace that embody cowl sheets for categorized data with the markings “SECRET//SCI” and “TOP SECRET//SCI.” The paperwork are positioned subsequent to a container with a framed Time journal cowl, amongst different gadgets.

Seen on the duvet sheets is the message “Accommodates delicate compartmented data as much as HCS-P/SI/TK.”

Federal prosecutors instructed the courtroom that in some situations, “even the FBI counterintelligence personnel and DOJ attorneys conducting the evaluation” of the information seized on this month’s search required extra clearances earlier than they might evaluation sure paperwork, suggesting that they discovered the information to be extraordinarily delicate. 

In a put up to his social media platform Reality Social, Trump claimed he declassified the information seen within the picture from the FBI. Nevertheless, the Justice Division mentioned Trump’s representatives by no means “asserted that the previous president had declassified the paperwork or asserted any declare of government privilege.”

“Horrible the way in which the FBI, throughout the Raid of Mar-a-Lago, threw paperwork haphazardly all around the flooring (maybe pretending it was me that did it!), after which began taking photos of them for the general public to see,” Trump wrote Wednesday. “Thought they wished them saved Secret? Fortunate I Declassified!”

His authorized group additionally has till eight p.m. Wednesday to submit its personal response with the courtroom.

Investigators are probing Trump’s alleged mishandling of categorized paperwork, particularly information that he took from the White Home to his Mar-a-Lago residence when he left workplace in January 2021, in addition to attainable obstruction of the investigation. 

The Justice Division revealed Friday that earlier this yr, investigators discovered 184 distinctive paperwork bearing classification markings — together with 67 paperwork marked confidential, 92 paperwork marked secret and 25 paperwork marked high secret — in materials the Nationwide Archives and Information Administration initially collected from Trump in mid-January. The Archives later referred the matter to the Justice Division for additional examination. 

Of their newest submitting, federal prosecutors mentioned that throughout the course of its investigation, the FBI “developed proof” indicating that along with the 15 packing containers retrieved by the Archives in mid-January, “dozens of extra packing containers” seemingly containing categorized data remained at Mar-a-Lago.

To retrieve these extra categorized information, the Justice Division obtained a grand jury subpoena and on June 3, three FBI brokers and a Justice Division lawyer visited Mar-a-Lago to get the supplies, in accordance with Tuesday’s submitting. The officers acquired from Trump’s representatives a “single Redweld envelope double-wrapped in tape,” prosecutors mentioned. Trump had beforehand claimed that he “voluntarily” accepted the subpoena and later invited investigators to Florida for the June Three assembly. 

Based on the Justice Division’s response, an unidentified particular person characterised because the “custodian of information” for Trump’s post-presidential workplace offered federal legislation enforcement with a signed certification letter on June Three that said a “diligent search” was performed of packing containers introduced from the White Home to Mar-a-Lago and that “any and all” paperwork conscious of the grand jury subpoena had been turned over.

Information taken from the White Home to Mar-a-Lago had been saved in a single location, a lawyer for Trump current on June Three instructed federal officers: a storage room on the property, the Justice Division mentioned in its response. A preliminary evaluation of the paperwork performed by the FBI revealed the envelope contained “38 distinctive paperwork bearing classification markings, together with 5 paperwork marked as CONFIDENTIAL, 16 paperwork marked as SECRET, and 17 paperwork marked as TOP SECRET.”

“Counsel for the previous president supplied no clarification as to why packing containers of presidency information, together with 38 paperwork with classification markings, remained on the premises practically 5 months after the manufacturing of the Fifteen Containers and practically one-and-a-half years after the top of the administration,” Justice Division legal professionals instructed the courtroom. 

However after the June Three assembly at Mar-a-Lago, the FBI, in accordance with the response, claims it uncovered “a number of sources of proof” that indicated extra categorized paperwork remained on the property and {that a} search of the storage room “wouldn’t have uncovered all of the categorized paperwork on the premises.” Prosecutors added, “the federal government additionally developed proof that authorities information had been seemingly hid and faraway from the storage room and that efforts had been seemingly taken to hinder the federal government’s investigation.”

It was in opposition to that backdrop that the Justice Division sought the search warrant from a federal Justice of the Peace choose earlier this month, prosecutors mentioned. In the course of the Aug. eight search of Mar-a-Lago, federal brokers seized 33 packing containers, containers or “gadgets of proof” that contained greater than 100 categorized information, together with data categorized on the “highest ranges,” in accordance with the submitting. Three categorized paperwork had been allegedly present in desks in Trump’s “45 Workplace” and in addition taken by the FBI.

Of the gadgets seized by federal brokers, 13 packing containers or containers had paperwork with classification markings, a few of which contained coloured cowl sheets indicating their classification standing — the picture of which was submitted to the courtroom in a supplemental submitting.

“That the FBI, in a matter of hours, recovered twice as many paperwork with classification markings because the ‘diligent search’ that the previous president’s counsel and different representatives had weeks to carry out calls into severe query the representations made within the June Three certification and casts doubt on the extent of cooperation on this matter,” the submitting asserts.

Following the execution of a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort earlier this month, the previous president filed a lawsuit asking a federal choose to nominate a particular grasp to look at the supplies and filter out any privileged or unrelated paperwork that weren’t inside the scope of the court-authorized warrant.

Final week, Choose Aileen Cannon of the U.S. District Court docket for the Southern District of Florida requested the Justice Division to elucidate its view of Trump’s request, setting a deadline of Tuesday for the federal government’s response. She additionally ordered the division to submit a extra detailed checklist specifying all property seized throughout its execution of the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, although that doc, additionally due Tuesday, was to be filed underneath seal.

In an order issued Saturday, earlier than the Justice Division responded to Trump’s movement, Cannon gave discover of her “preliminary intent” to nominate a particular grasp, although her choice was not ultimate. A listening to on Trump’s request is about for Thursday afternoon.

On Monday, prosecutors mentioned in a separate courtroom submitting that investigators had already accomplished their seek for probably privileged data and located a “restricted” set of paperwork that is perhaps thought-about protected underneath attorney-client privilege.

For his half, the previous president has denied wrongdoing and claimed with out proof that the investigation is a politically motivated assault as he prepares for a attainable presidential run in 2024.