Former President Donald Trump is fighting a request from the special master appointed to review documents seized from Mar-a-Lago that would compel Trump to testify in court whether the Department of Justice’s search inventory is correct.
The order would force Trump to defend under oath in court his allegation that the FBI could have planted evidence during the August 8 raid of his home.
On Wednesday, Trump’s lawyers submitted a court filing making Trump’s objection to the request known in response to a mention of it by the DOJ on Tuesday in a submission to special master US District Judge Raymond Dearie, CNN reported.
Trump’s legal team said that the former president objected to the possibility of testifying “because the Special Master’s case management plan exceeds the grant of authority from the District Court on this issue.”
“Additionally, the Plaintiff currently has no means of accessing the documents bearing classification markings, which would be necessary to complete any such certification by September 30, the currently proposed date of completion,” the filing added.
Trump also alleged that Dearie would be overreaching his authority by requesting that search documents be categorized more specifically that what US District Judge Aileen Cannon set up upon agreeing to Trump’s request for a special master to review the documents.
Trump also claimed in a Wednesday letter to Dearie that lawyers working for the investigation may have exposed client-attorney communications which are protected by law, before the DOJ or the special master could review them.