Trump appears to concede he illegally retained official documents

Donald Trump appeared to concede in his court filing over the seizure of materials from his Florida resort that he unlawfully retained official government documents, as the former president argued that some of the documents collected by the FBI could be subject to executive privilege.

Trump remains able to make the case that a special master should be appointed to review the seized documents, seek a more detailed receipt for what the FBI retrieved from Mar-a-Lago and restrain the justice department from further reviewing the materials until the process is complete.

The reasoning, former US attorneys say, is that there could be communications seized by the FBI that are privileged, but not used in furtherance of a crime, and even if the justice department wanted to use them in its investigation, it should be precluded from doing so.

Still, if Trump successfully argues the materials are protected by executive privilege, then he also successfully argues that he was in unlawful possession of official records. If he is unsuccessful, then executive privilege would not be a valid basis to seek a special master.

The search warrant for Mar-a-Lago listed obstruction for the statutes potentially violated, though it was not clear whether that was obstruction of the investigation into the very retrieval of government documents from Mar-a-Lago or for another, separate investigation.

But despite taking custody of documents responsive to the subpoena, the justice department learned there may have been additional documents marked as classified, and issued a subpoena on 22 June demanding security camera footage of the hallway outside where the materials were being stored.

That subpoena for security tapes, as well as a subsequent subpoena for CCTV footage of that area from just before the FBI search on 8 August, suggests the justice department did not think Trump was being entirely truthful or forthcoming in his interactions with the investigation.

Separately, apart from late filing of the motion two weeks after the FBI search took place, the brief itself appears to be procedurally problematic.