The big picture: The FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home on Monday, recovering 11 sets of classified documents.
Fox News reported Saturday that the FBI seized boxes covered by attorney-client privilege and possibly executive privilege, according to unnamed sources familiar with the investigation.
What it says: “It has just been learned that the FBI, in its now famous Mar-a-Lago raid, took boxes of privileged ‘attorney-client’ material and also ‘executive’ privileged material, which they knowingly should not have. they got,” Trump told Truth Social.
“With a copy of this TRUTH, I respectfully request that these documents be immediately returned to the location from which they were obtained,” he said.
Worth noting: House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told CBS Face the Nation that he had seen no evidence to support Trump’s claim that the documents were declassified.
“A former president does not have a declassification authority,” Schiff said. “And the idea that 18 months after the fact that Donald Trump could just announce, ‘Well, I’m retroactively declassifying or whatever I took home had the effect of declassifying them’ is preposterous.”
Background: Trump and his associates have often tried to assert executive privilege to prevent the release of documents or information.
Trump tried to claim executive privilege over the presidential records requested by the House committee on January 6 last year, but was denied. Several former White House officials also declined to appear before the committee, citing executive privilege.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated with comments from spokesperson Adam Schiff.
