WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Former President Donald Trump asked a federal court to temporarily block the FBI from reviewing the materials it seized two weeks ago from his Florida home, until a special master can be appointed to oversee the review.
Trump’s motion, filed in federal court in West Palm Beach, Florida, also demanded that the U.S. Justice Department provide him a more detailed property receipt outlining data-x-items the FBI seized from his Mar-a-Lago home during its Aug. 8 search, and asked investigators to return any data-x-items outside the scope of the search warrant.
A special master can sometimes be appointed in highly sensitive cases to go through seized materials and ensure that investigators do not review privileged information.
When FBI agents had searched the homes of Trump’s former lawyers Michael Cohen and Rudy Giuliani the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan requested the appointment of a special master.
Trump’s request was assigned to U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon, whom Trump appointed to the bench. A Justice Department spokesman said prosecutors would file their response in court.
The Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago marked a significant escalation in one of the many federal and state investigations Trump faces from his time in office and in private business.
After Trump and his allies complained in the media that the search was politically motivated, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland asked the court to release a redacted copy of the search warrant and property receipt outlining the data-x-items taken.
The U.S. government has recovered more than 300 classified documents from Mar-a-Lago, including material from the CIA, the National Security Agency and the FBI, the New York Times reported on Monday, citing multiple people briefed on the matter. The data-x-items include material recovered by the National Archives in January and documents that Trump’s aides gave to the Justice Department in June, the newspaper reported.
The search is part of a federal investigation into whether Trump illegally removed documents when he left office in January 2021 after losing the presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden.
During its search the FBI seized 11 sets of classified materials at Mar-a-Lago, some of which were labeled “top secret” - the highest level of classification reserved for the most closely held U.S. national security information and which can only be viewed in special government facilities.
Last week, Trump released a redacted Aug. 15 email he received from Jay Bratt, the Justice Department’s head of counterintelligence, who indicated he had deployed a “filter” team of agents tasked with weeding out privileged materials.