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Federal prosecutors are reportedly waiting until the midterm elections are over to announce whether they would bring any charges against President Donald Trump after storming his Florida home last month.
According to Bloomberg, the Justice Department’s policy bars prosecutors from furthering an investigation or filing charges within 60 days of an election to prevent influencing or affecting a candidate or party.
However, the Department of Justice (DOJ) is likely to announce whether President Trump would be charged concerning the Mar-a-Lago raid, where the FBI confiscated documents from the president’s private residence, following November’s election, where Trump has endorsed numerous Republican candidates, the outlet added.
Fox News host Judge Jeanine Pirro called out the DOJ’s decision to announce the charges after the election, labeling it a “blatantly political move.”
“If you’re not convinced this is just another witch hunt, well, new reports say the DOJ is waiting past the midterms to reveal any Trump charges,” Pirro said on Jesse Watters Primetime. “This is a blatantly political move. The DOJ has a policy of not bringing charges against political figures so close to an election, but they don’t have to charge Trump in order to affect the election.”
President Trump and the DOJ are in the middle of a legal battle over the raid. Trump’s legal team requested a “special master” to review the seized documents with Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon overseeing it, RSBN previously reported.
However, the DOJ voiced its opposition against appointing a special master in a 40-page filing Tuesday, saying Trump “lacks standing,” according to Fox News.
President Trump’s legal team then accused the DOJ of leaking information, reportedly of “a photograph of allegedly classified materials, pulled from a container and spread across the floor for dramatic effect,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in a filing Wednesday.
Trump also pushed back, writing:
“There seems to be confusion as to the ‘picture’ where documents were sloppily thrown on the floor and then released photographically for the world to see, as if that’s what the FBI found when they broke into my home. Wrong! They took them out of cartons and spread them around on the carpet, making it look like a big ‘find’ for them. They dropped them, not me – Very deceiving…And remember, we could have NO representative, including lawyers, present during the Raid. They were told to wait outside.”
Moreover, Trump’s legal team argues that the DOJ would leak aspects of the case to mainstream media outlets to take down the president.
“Left unchecked, the DOJ will impugn, leak, and publicize selective aspects of their investigation with no recourse for Movant but to somehow trust the self-restraint of currently unchecked investigators,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.
The Epoch Times reported that Cannon is scheduled to announce a decision soon, although there is no set date. However, it appeared as though Cannon would not be against granting President Trump a special master, as she poked the DOJ, asking, “what is the harm of appointing a special master?”
“What is your articulation of harm other than the general concern that it would delay a criminal investigation?” Cannon added.