The request was included in a federal lawsuit, the first filing by Trump’s legal team in the two weeks since the search.
WASHINGTON — Lawyers for former President Donald Trump asked a federal judge Monday to halt the FBI’s review of documents recovered from his Florida estate earlier this month until a neutral special master can be appointed to inspect the records.
“Law enforcement is a shield that protects America. It cannot be used as a weapon for political purposes,” the lawyers wrote Monday. “Therefore, we seek judicial assistance in the aftermath of an unprecedented and unnecessary raid” at Mar-a-Lago. In some other high-profile cases — including investigations involving Rudy Giuliani and Michael Cohen, two of Trump’s personal attorneys — that role has been filled by a former judge.
The high court turned down Trump’s plea to block records held by the National Archives from being turned over to the Jan. 6 committee, saying then that his request would have been denied even if he had been the incumbent president, so there was no need to tackle the thorny issue of a former president’s claims.
The Trump team’s lawsuit was assigned to U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who was nominated by Trump in 2020 and confirmed by the Senate 56-21 later that year. She is a former assistant U.S. attorney in Florida, handling mainly criminal appeals., emerged from a referral from the National Archives, which earlier this year retrieved 15 boxes of documents and other items from the estate that should have been turned over to the agency when Trump left the White House.
A written order from U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart largely restates what he said in court last week, when he directed the Justice Department to propose redactions about the information in the affidavit that it wants to remain secret. That submission is due Thursday at noon.