Former President Trump asked a federal court to appoint a special master to review the documents the FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago during a court-authorized search. Trump also is seeking to prevent the government from further reviewing the documents until a special master is appointed, and he wants the government to provide more details on items that were taken in the search. The legal action is the first from Trump's attorneys since FBI agents executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago two weeks ago, NPR reports. Law enforcement is a shield that protects Americans. It cannot be used as a weapon for political purposes," the filing says. "Therefore, we seek judicial assistance in the aftermath of an unprecedented and unnecessary raid on President Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago."
Trump's attorneys argue that the search raises Fourth Amendment concerns and that the warrant used was too broad. They say DOJ took the unprecedented step of searching the former president's home despite what Trump's attorneys say was his voluntary assistance with investigators over several months. DOJ spokesman Anthony Coley reiterated that the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago was "authorized by a federal court upon the required finding of probable cause." U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart has given DOJ until later this week to provide a redacted copy of the affidavit used to justify the search. Media organizations asked the judge to unseal all documents related to the search, notably the affidavit laying out the reasoning and research. The initial batch of documents retrieved by the National Archives from former Trump in January included more than 150 marked as classified, a number that helped trigger the criminal investigation that led to the Mar-a-Lago search, the New York Times reports. The government has recovered more than 300 documents with classified markings from Trump since he left office, including material seized by the FBI.