Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022.
AP Photo/Mary Altaffer
The Justice Department pointed out that Trump’s court filings don’t back up his claim that he declassified all the records found at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump “seeks to raise questions about the classification status of the records” but didn’t “provide any evidence” that any of them had been declassified, DOJ said.
Prosecutors also previously noted that whether the records are classified has no bearing on if Trump committed a crime.
The Justice Department on Tuesday pointed out a key discrepancy in former President Donald Trump’s legal arguments in the wake of the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago search — none of his court filings back up his public claim that he had declassified all the government records seized in the search.
Trump “principally seeks to raise questions about the classification status of the records and their categorization under the Presidential Records Act (‘PRA’),” the department said in a new legal filing. “But Plaintiff does not actually assert—much less provide any evidence—that any of the seized records bearing classification markings have been declassified.”
This story is developing. Check back for updates.