Former President Trump’s legal team has not agreed to provide any further information in support of Trump’s claims that the documents found in his Mar-a-Lago home have been declassified.
The Court-appointed special master that Trump requested from the court has requested further information on the declassification, but Trump’s lawyers have insisted that this information will only be disclosed in a motion in a criminal trial which would seek to recover Trump’s property.
As his legal team wrote, “Otherwise, the Special Master process will have forced the Plaintiff to fully and specifically disclose a defense to the merits of any subsequent indictment without such a requirement being evident in the District Court’s order.”
Trump’s attorneys have previously said that Trump had declassified more than 300 documents that were recovered from his home in Florida. But when it came to the court filings, they refused to make similar statements again.
In their filing last week however they said that while the government insists that declassification would require Trump to have gotten the approval of some “bureaucratic components” that are not, in fact, necessary and there is no legitimate contention for these claims.
The Justice Department in their next filing reported the claim by saying that while the plaintiff may be trying to raise questions regarding what the declassification status is, the actual classification markings are determined by the Presidential Records Act.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts on Monday also filed for the “standing” declassification order made by Trump to be released.
