From WWW.DAILYMAIL.CO.UK
Donald Trump demanded that the FBI return to him any attorney-client material they seized from Mar-a-Lago during the raid on Monday.
‘Oh great! It has just been learned that the FBI, in its now famous raid of Mar-a-Lago, took boxes of privileged ‘attorney-client’ material, and also ‘executive’ privileged material, which they knowingly should not have taken,’ the former president lamented on Truth Social, referencing a recent Fox News report.
He said that the FBI should consider his post on the alternative social media site his formal request that the documents be returned to his Palm Beach estate.
‘By copy of this TRUTH,’ Trump wrote on Sunday, ‘I respectfully request that these documents be immediately returned to the location from which they were taken. Thank you!’
Before Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday made his first public statement on the raid, a person close to Trump reached out to a Justice Department official to pass along a message from the former president, according to The New York Times.
‘The country is on fire. What can I do to reduce the heat?’ was the message Trump wanted portrayed, according to a person familiar with the exchange.
Sources familiar with the investigation into the documents Trump took from the White House when he left office told Fox News that the former president’s team was informed several documents seized in the raid contained attorney-client privilege information.
Specifically this type of information was found in boxes labeled A-14, A-26, A-43, A-13, A-33.
The report also notes that the FBI seized records that potentially could fall under executive privilege.
The sources told Fox that the Justice Department opposed requests from the former president’s lawyers that they appoint an independent team to review the records.
Trump claimed Monday morning in a Truth post: ‘The FBI has a long and unrelenting history of being corrupt.’
After airing a series of grievances with the bureau and DOJ, including the ‘Russia hoax’, Trump lamented the raid.
‘NOW THEY RAID MY HOME, ban my lawyers and, without any witnesses allowed, break the lock that they asked us to install on the storage area that we showed them early on,’ Trump posted to his social media site.
He added that the area they raided ‘held papers that they could have had months ago for the asking, and without the ridiculous political grandstanding of a ‘break in’ to a very storied, important, and high visibility place, just before the Midterm Elections.’… (Read more)
