Trump claims he owns White House pardon and immigration policy records

Former President Donald Trump is claiming that nine documents seized by the FBI from his Florida residence are his personal property — but the Justice Department says they are official records that should be deposited with the National Archives, according to a new letter to the special master who is overseeing a review of the materials.

The letter, filed Thursday by the Justice Department, describes disputes over ownership and executive privilege claims involving a batch of 15 records that have undergone early review. It likely foreshadows larger fights to come over the main bulk of roughly 13,000 documents and other materials FBI agents took from Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s club and residence, in a court-authorized search in August.

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The materials from the initial tranche that Trump maintains belong to him include six packages submitted to him when he was president supporting requests that he grant clemency to pardon-seekers; two documents related to his administration’s immigration policies; and an email addressed to him from a person at a military academy, the letter said.

But the Justice Department, in its letter, cited the Presidential Records Act, which says all documentary materials created or received by a president, his staff or his office in the course of official activities are government property that should go to the National Archives when a president leaves office.

The dispute stems from a decision by Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida’s Southern District to grant Trump’s request that she intervene in the Justice Department’s inquiry into whether he had unlawfully kept classified records at his estate and obstructed the government’s repeated efforts to retrieve them.

Cannon appointed the special master, Judge Raymond Dearie of the US District Court in Brooklyn, to review any claims that the documents were Trump’s personal property or protected by attorney-client or executive privilege.

Addressed to Dearie, the letter said that Trump is also claiming that four of the 15 documents should be withheld from investigators under executive privilege. They include the two immigration policy documents and two documents about meetings he was to approve and certain questions he had been asked.

The Justice Department argued that Trump “cannot logically assert” executive privilege over the immigration policy documents while claiming they are personal property.