DOJ says that 'efforts were likely taken to obstruct' its investigation into Trump's handling of government records

The Justice Department said Donald Trump's accusations against the government were "meritless." Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, Brandon Bell/Getty Images

• The DOJ said in a court filing that Trump's Mar-a-Lago lawsuit "fails for multiple, independent reasons."
• It said Trump is not entitled to a special master because the Mar-a-Lago "records don't belong to him."
• It also said that classified records may have been "concealed and removed" and that "efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government's investigation" into Trump.

Federal investigators obtained a warrant to search former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate after receiving evidence that there were "likely" efforts to conceal government records and obstruct an inquiry into the handling of those documents, the Justice Department said in a court filing late Tuesday.

In the 36-page filing, the department urged a federal judge to reject Trump's request for a court-appointed "special master" to review records seized during an unprecedented search of his South Florida home on August 8.

The response offered the most detailed account to date of investigators' suspicions that Trump and his team misled them when they claimed to have returned all classified records stored at Mar-a-Lago to the government after a "diligent search."

The Justice Department specifically questioned the truthfulness of a June letter, included in Tuesday's court filing, in which a Trump representative certified that the former president's team conducted a thorough search for records subject to a grand jury subpoena.

"That the FBI, in a matter of hours, recovered twice as many documents with classification markings as the 'diligent search' that the former President's counsel and other representatives had weeks to perform calls into serious question the representations made in the June 3 certification and casts doubt on the extent of cooperation in this matter," Justice Department lawyers added.

The court filing also included a photograph of documents seized at Mar-a-Lago that "had colored cover sheets indicating their classification status." The documents were recovered from the "45 office," the Justice Department said, with classification levels ranging from confidential to top secret.

A photograph of some of the classified materials that were uncovered after the FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago Department of Justice

"In some instances, even the FBI counterintelligence personnel and DOJ attorneys conducting the review required additional clearances before they were permitted to review certain documents," the Justice Department said.

Tuesday's response came a week after Trump sued to stop the department from continuing its review of materials seized from Mar-a-Lago. In the lawsuit, Trump's lawyers asked Judge Aileen Cannon to order investigators to halt that review until she appointed an outside expert — known as a "special master" — to determine whether any of the material taken by federal agents is privileged.

But the Justice Department noted in its filing that Trump did not assert executive privilege over any of the records or say that any of them had been declassified in communications leading up to the Mar-a-Lago search.

Cannon, a Trump appointee confirmed in 2020, indicated in a weekend order that she was inclined to grant Trump's request for an independent special master. She also ordered the Justice Department to file under seal a more detailed inventory of materials seized during the August 8 search of Trump's residence and private club in South Florida.

The judge set a hearing for 1 p.m. Thursday at the federal courthouse in West Palm Beach.

In its court filing Tuesday, the Justice Department said the appointment of a special master would impede not only the criminal investigation into Trump's handling of government records but a separate assessment by the intelligence community of the national security risk from the improper storage of those documents. It also argued that Trump is not entitled to the special master or the return of documents taken from his Mar-a-Lago home.

"As an initial matter, the former President lacks standing to seek judicial relief or oversight as to Presidential records because those records do not belong to him," the Justice Department said.

In an earlier court filing, the Justice Department said it identified a "limited set of materials that potentially contain attorney-client privileged information." A team specially assigned to filter out such information is following procedures to address potential privilege disputes, the Justice Department said.

FBI agents removed more than two dozen boxes of materials from Mar-a-Lago during the August 8 search, including 11 sets of classified documents, several of them categorized as top secret. On Friday, Avril Haines, director of national intelligence, told lawmakers that her office was leading an assessment of the potential risk to national security that would result from the release of those materials.

In a separate court proceeding last week, the Justice Department unsealed a public version of the affidavit in support of the search warrant for Trump's home. Though heavily redacted, the document provided the clearest description to date of the FBI's rationale for pursuing an unprecedented search of a former president's home.

According to the affidavit, the FBI decided to seek a search warrant after reviewing 184 classified documents, including some that appeared to bear Trump's handwriting, that the former president turned over to the National Archives in January. In the months that followed, the affidavit said, FBI agents came to suspect that Trump and his team were concealing the fact that he continued to store classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

"There is also probable cause," the affidavit said, "to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found."

A previously unsealed search warrant specified that the Justice Department is investigating whether Trump violated the Espionage Act and other laws governing the handling of government records.