Trump Claims Clemency Requests as Personal Property, US Says
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(Bloomberg) -- Former President Donald Trump is arguing that clemency requests seized by the FBI from his Florida estate during a search for White House records are his personal property and should be returned to him.
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The requests for reduced sentences or pardons are among dozens of documents at the heart of a legal dispute between Trump and the Justice Department over which ones belong to the former president or the government, according to a filing late Thursday in Florida.
The clemency requests were received by Trump while he was president and “in his capacity as the official with authority to grant reprieves and pardons, not in his personal capacity,” the Justice Department said.
A “special master” will make recommendations on each dispute as part of a court-approved plan for reviewing about 11,000 seized records.
Christopher Kise, one of Trump’s lawyers, didn’t return a message seeking comment.
In its filing, the Justice Department criticized Trump for attempting to assert executive privilege over documents that he also claims are personal, and pushed back on his criticism of personal items being seized during the search.
‘Important Evidence’
“Personal records that are not government property are seized every day for use in criminal investigations,” the government said in a footnote of the filing. “And the fact that more than 100 documents bearing classification markings were commingled with unclassified and even personal records is important evidence in the government’s investigation in this case.”
Other documents in dispute relate to immigration initiatives and the president’s powers under the Immigration and Nationality Act, according to the filing. Another is a printed e-mail from someone at a military academy addressed to Trump in his official capacity “about the academy’s sports program and its relationship to martial spirit.”
The government is investigating whether Trump broke any laws by taking dozens of boxes of presidential records with him after leaving office -- many with highly classified markings -- instead of handing them over to the National Archives. Trump claims the probe is politically motivated.
Trump won the appointment of Raymond Dearie , a semi-retired federal judge in Brooklyn, as the special master to rule on disputes over what was seized. A federal judge in Florida, where Trump sued, will have the final say.
The case is Trump v. United States of America, 9:22-cv-81294, US District Court for the Southern District of Florida (West Palm Beach).
--With assistance from Zoe Tillman.
(Updates with detail on records dispute)
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