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President Donald Trump’s legal team eviscerated the DOJ in a court filing related to the ongoing battle over the 45th president’s request that a special master be appointed to oversee the documents seized by the FBI from August’s shocking raid on his Florida home.
Per The Washington Examiner, Trump’s attorneys took aim at alleged violations of the president’s constitutional rights, particularly as it relates to the Fourth Amendment. For reference, the Fourth Amendment cites the following:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Trump’s legal team argued in the filing that, “The convoluted theory, which appears to be that the Biden administration will not allow President Trump to assert executive privilege and consequently he has ‘no right’ to possess Presidential documents, and that, therefore, he has no standing to object to their seizure, is contrary to the well-established doctrine of standing. It is the reasonable expectation of privacy in one’s home that triggers the obvious standing of the homeowner to contest a search on this premises.”
Further, the DOJ’s previous response to Trump’s special master request stated: “Plaintiff’s motion to appoint a special master, enjoin further review of seized materials, and require the return of seized items fails for multiple, independent reasons. 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.”
However, Trump’s legal team has countered the DOJ’s pushback in their filing by asserting that the “purported justification for the initiation of this criminal probe” was the alleged “discovery of sensitive information contained with 15 boxes of Presidential records.” They added, “the notion that Presidential records would contain sensitive information should have never been cause for alarm.”
