IOWA CAUCUS 2024

Staff Photographer

Trump

The Washington Post

promo handout

HOGP

Trump Classified Documents

Former President Donald Trump Appears In Florida Court For Classified Documents Case Hearing

Staff

Former U.S. President Trump's classified documents case hearing in Fort Pierce

Former President Trump Appears In Fort Pierce Courtroom For Federal Classified Documents Case

Former President Donald Trump Appears In Fort Pierce Courtroom For Federal Classified Documents Case

US former President Trump attends court hearing in Fort Pierce, Florida, Usa - 01 Mar 2024

For The Washington Post

what is it like to be prosecuted by Jack Smith?

2023 Iowa State Fair

A collage with Jack Smith and the text 'Department of Justice'.

jacksteam

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

The Rick Steves guide to life

The sad, stale state of in-flight vegetarian meals

Is Southwest about to end its free-for-all seating?

Where seas are rising at alarming speed 

The new face of flooding

In photos: Tornadoes wreak havoc in Oklahoma, Nebraska and Iowa

Middle East conflict live updates: Blinken calls proposed Israeli cease-fire deal ‘extraordinarily generous’

The Rangers swept the Capitals, and it’s time for the new core to take charge

Jayden Daniels is latest in Washington’s checkered history of first-round QBs

An assassination plot on American soil reveals a darker side of Modi’s India

Spanish leader Sánchez to stay in power after resignation drama

Scotland leader Humza Yousaf resigns in latest setback for independence 

Hunter Biden attorney threatens litigation against Fox News

Trump and allies say Biden pays rent for ‘illegals’ in Michigan. Not true.

Harsh deportation tools are just fine with many Americans

Is student loan debt an emergency? Take our quiz.

Humans might need to re-engineer the climate

The Fed’s fight against inflation needs to lose the dot plot

Soldiers reunite with their pets from overseas: ‘It meant everything to me’

Chiropractor works on giraffe, is nuzzled: ‘Giraffes are just giant dogs?’

An SUV was in flames on the highway. Strangers saved the driver.  

Carolyn Hax: Is checking his phone the best way to prove he isn’t lying anymore?

Ask Amy: Boyfriend’s CPA dad did my taxes wrong for years

Miss Manners: I think kindergarten graduations are ‘ridiculous’

Meta’s oversight body prepares to lay off workers

An AI blood test purports to diagnose postpartum depression

A TikTok ban could also end short-form video as we’ve come to know it

Eighty percent of Ukraine-Israel bill will be spent in U.S. or by U.S. military

Facts in the Trump courtroom v. ‘facts’ in the court of public opinion

 Donald Trump Speaks During A Campaign Rally In Green Bay Wisconsin

See more coverage in your recommendations

Get the weekly Campaign Moment newsletter

Set alerts for major election developments

Election 2024

The Campaign Moment newsletter

Politics alerts

Courtesy of Department of Justice

The Mar-a-Lago special master on Thursday ordered Donald Trump’s lawyers to state in a court filing whether they believe FBI agents lied about documents seized from the former president’s Florida residence in a court-authorized search last month, or claimed to have taken items that were not actually in Trump’s possession.

In a Thursday afternoon filing, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/16/raymond-dearie-special-master-trump-documents/?itid=lk_inline_manual_4">U.S. District Judge Raymond J. Dearie</a> — the special master — told Trump’s legal team to state by Sept. 30 whether they believe any of the seized items were incorrectly described in the Justice Department’s<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/02/fbi-inventory-mar-a-lago/" target=_blank> 11-page inventory list</a>, which said some of the documents were highly classified.

Dearie also told them to say whether they are claiming that any items on the inventory list were not in fact taken from the premises.

Trump has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/22/trump-hannity-classified-documents/" target=_blank>said on social media and in television interviews</a> that the FBI planted items when they searched his Mar-a-Lago residence and private club on Aug. 8. He also claimed to have declassified documents found in that search that were marked classified and were highly sensitive. His lawyers have not made similar assertions in court, however, instead saying they have not reviewed the seized materials and are unable to confirm whether the government’s inventory list is accurate.

<a href="https://docs-cdn-prod.news-engineering.aws.wapo.pub/publish_document/3f49cb29-9e0b-49d9-b035-2fd960135ea4/published/3f49cb29-9e0b-49d9-b035-2fd960135ea4.pdf" target=_blank>Dearie’s order</a>, in essence, demands that Trump’s lawyers back up their client’s claims. “This submission shall be Plaintiff’s final opportunity to raise any factual dispute as to the completeness and accuracy of the Detailed Property Inventory,” he wrote.

At a hearing Tuesday, Dearie <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/20/dearie-mar-a-lago-trump/" target=_blank>pressed Trump’s lawyers</a> to take a position on whether the classified documents were, as Trump has said, declassified, but they demurred.

The status of key investigations involving Donald Trump

Dearie’s approach is strikingly different from how Judge Aileen M. Cannon — the Florida-based district court judge who granted Trump’s request <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/05/trump-special-master-documents/" target=_blank>to appoint a special master</a> earlier this month — has handled her part of the case.

Cannon never asked Trump’s attorneys to explain why they thought the inventory list might be inaccurate or why they implied that some of the documents that were labeled as classified were not actually classified.

In his order, Dearie gave the government — which is investigating the potential mishandling of classified information at Mar-a-Lago — until Monday to submit a statement declaring whether its inventory list is a full and accurate representation of what was seized. The government must also later respond to any factual disputes that Trump’s team raises in its filings.

Brittainy Newman

Cannon appointed Dearie to review the roughly 11,000 documents seized from Mar-a-Lago and determine whether any should be shielded from criminal investigators because of claims of attorney-client privilege or the far more vague and disputed assertion of executive privilege.

Her order barred the Justice Department from accessing the classified documents for its criminal probe until they were reviewed. But the Justice Department<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/21/mar-a-lago-appeal-court-ruling/" target=_blank> successfully appealed</a> that part of the decision; the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled late Wednesday that the classified material should not be part of the special master review and that the FBI could use it.

Trump’s team could appeal that decision to the Supreme Court.

The Justice Department's Jan. 6 investigation is looking at ... everything

Dearie’s Thursday order said Trump’s attorneys and the government should review the nonclassified documents on a rolling basis, with Trump’s team reviewing them first and marking any that it thinks are privileged. The Justice Department would then note whether it agrees with that assertion, and Dearie would settle any disagreements between the two parties.

They must submit all the documents to Dearie by Oct. 21 — more than a month ahead of the Thanksgiving deadline that Cannon set for the special master review. Trump’s lawyers said at a hearing Tuesday in Dearie’s Brooklyn courthouse that they believed his proposed schedule would not allow them enough time to thoroughly search through all the documents.

Dearie also said in his Thursday order that James Orenstein, a former U.S. magistrate judge for the Eastern District of New York, would help him with the review. He said Orenstein has served on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and holds top-secret government clearance, which means that he would theoretically be able to review many of the seized classified documents if required.

Read special master Raymond Dearie's Sept. 22 order

Orenstein is most known <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/federal-judge-stokes-debate-about-data-encryption/2015/10/10/c75da20e-6f6f-11e5-9bfe-e59f5e244f92_story.html" target=_blank>for a 2015 case in which he determined</a> that prosecutors did not have the legal authority to force Apple to help investigators bypass the passcode feature on a drug dealer’s iPhone.

Dearie said he expects to use court staff from the Eastern District of New York to help him with his special master duties.

Trump’s team proposed Dearie to be the special master — and the government agreed he would be a suitable choice. Cannon then appointed Dearie, ordering Trump’s legal team to cover the costs.

Since Dearie is still an active federal judge, he said in his Thursday filing, he does not plan to charge Trump for his work in this review. But he proposed that Orenstein be paid $500 per hour.

Washington University in St. Louis, BA

Perry Stein covers the Justice Department and FBI for The Washington Post. She previously covered D.C. education. Before she joined The Post in 2015, she was a staff writer for Washington City Paper and wrote for the Miami Herald. 

Dearie asks Trump lawyers whether they believe FBI lied about seized documents

Order by Mar-a-Lago special master is the first time Donald Trump’s attorneys have been asked to confirm or deny his claims in court