Donald Trump announced he would be returning to Mar-a-Lago for the first time since the FBI raided his Florida resort and home in August, days before the special master is set to begin reviewing thousands of documents seized in the search.
The former president made the announcement in a post on his social media platform Truth Social, and derided the raid as a ‘unwarranted, unjust, and illegal’ while saying he would be observing the damage of what he called the FBI’s ‘break-in.’
‘I’ll soon be heading to the scene of the unwarranted, unjust, and illegal Raid and Break-In of my home in Florida, Mar-a-Lago,’ Trump wrote. ‘I’ll be able to see for myself the results of the unnecessary ransacking of rooms and other areas of the house.’
‘It has already been proven that so much has been wrongfully taken, it is not a ‘pretty thing.’ So sad! The 4th Amendment, and much more, has been totally violated, a grave invasion of privacy. I will keep the American public informed on TRUTH!’
Trump was in New York City when the raid went down on August 8, and has been giving speeches across the country and teeing up for rounds of golf across the country ever since.
His return home comes just as the Department of Justice appointed special master, Judge Raymond Dearie, is poised to begin his review of the approximately 11,000 items seized from Mar-a-Lago in the raid to weed out any covered by claims of legal privilege.
Dearie has asked the DOJ and attorneys for Trump to attend a ‘preliminary conference’ in New York City on Tuesday. He has until November 30 to complete his review, after which time the DOJ’s investigation into the documents found Mar-a-Lago can continue.
The FBI says of the documents seized while serving the court-authorized search warrant at the home, roughly 300 items marked as classified were found in a storage room and an office.
Former president Donald Trump announced he would be returning to Mar-a-Lago for the first time since the FBI raid in early August
The FBI says of the documents seized while serving the court-authorized search warrant at the home, roughly 300 items marked as classified were found in a storage room and an office
Dearie was appointed to review the documents after Trump requested an independent mediator to determine whether any of the documents seized from his home were protected under executive or client-attorney privilege.
Since Trump filed the request in August, Federal investigators have been unable to review any of the seized documents and will be blocked from doing so until Dearie’s review is completed.
Judge Raymond Dearie has been appointed to be the special master and has until November 30 to complete his review of the 11,000 documents
Both the DOJ and Trump’s attorney’s agreed upon Dearie – formerly a chief judge for the Eastern District of New York’s federal court – serving as the special master after reviewing numerous candidates.
Dearie was the top prosecutor in Brooklyn, New York, before being appointed to the federal bench by Ronald Reagan in 1986.
His docket included high-profile terrorism cases – including some from overseas.
He has also served on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which authorizes Justice Department wiretap applications for investigations into suspected foreign agents.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing and insists he is the victim of a political conspiracy to knock him out of he 2024 election.
He told radio host Hugh Hewitt that the Department of Justice had no justification for its actions.
Police are posted outside of Mar-a-Lago as FBI investigators raid the resort on August 8
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and home on August 8, as FBI investigators raid it for classified documents taken from the White House
‘There is no reason that they can be other than if they are just sick and deranged, which is always possible, because I did absolutely – you see the legal papers – absolutely nothing wrong,’ he said.
Hewitt asked Trump whether he could have taken the papers by accident or on purpose.
‘Remember this – everything was declassified, number one,’ Trump responded. However, legal experts have questioned whether Trump had done that.
And even his own legal team has not made that argument in court papers.
In fact, when they handed over a tranche of documents to the government in June, Trump’s lawyers made no mention of the fact that any were declassified.
‘When producing the documents, neither FPOTUS COUNSEL 1 nor INDIVIDUAL 2 asserted that FPOTUS had declassified the documents,’ reads a court filing referring to the Former President of the United States.
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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk