By Ashe O.
Washington, Aug 24 (IANS): A judge has asked former President Donald Trump's legal team to clarify the basic details of a "muddled" lawsuit they have filed two weeks after the FBI raid on his Florida residence Mar-a-Lago, leading to the seizure of a large cache of classified documents (11 boxes) violating the espionage act, as claimed by the Department of Justice that insists on not unsealing them in the national interest.
Some of them were said to be the CIA, the FBI, and intelligence reports.
This development takes place even as Trump allies, in terms of Republican Senators and supporters, strongly suspect his son-in-law Jared Kushner of being the FBI mole that tipped the agency off on the documents being kept in Mar-a-Lago after the ex-President claimed to have handed over everything he took with him after leaving the White House,
eventually leading to the raid and seizure.
Kushner denied being a mole.
Speaking to Fox News, he blamed the press for amplifying the idea, singling out Trump's psychologist niece Mary Trump for criticism. "It's absolutely not true, categorically, in every way," he said. "But I think that's more of a statement of the sad state of the media, where the more outlandish - especially if it includes me - then the media will write about it and create headlines."
But there is a background, public perception, and media suspicion about Kushner being the mole as first he distanced himself from the Jan 6 riots at the Capitol Hill along with his wife Ivanka Trump, and the history that his father, Charles Kushner, a wealthy realtor from New Jersey, had long been a Democrat supporter donating large sums to both then President Bill Clinton and his wife Hilary Clinton for their political campaigns.
But subsequently Charles Kushner was incarcerated for his shady land dealings, Jared then inherited his father's legacy and continued to support Democrats until he married Ivanka and switched loyalties to the Republican Party and became Trump's senior advisor in the White House.
Coming to speed on the Trump raid, Judge Briuce Reinhart, who issued the warrant, ordered Monday redacted versions of the affidavit be unsealed in public interest and demand by the media on the unprecedented raid on an ex-President even as he weighed in the DOJ's interests of keeping sealed large portions of the security documents in national interest. There are also security reasons, as unsealing them all could hamper further investigations in a possible retaliation of intimidation of agents and witnesses by some of Trump's supporters.
Trump had demanded the appointment of a special master, that's an independent 3rd party with no bias, to review the seized documents. The lawsuit, according to the judge, appears muddled and no clear idea of what Trump is demanding.
Multiple news outlets have reported that the federal government has reportedly recovered a total of 300 classified documents since Trump left the White House, totaling more than 700 pages. This includes some 150 documents handed over by agreement at the start of this year. A whistleblower at the National Archives, a Trump appointee, complicated matters for Trump by releasing a May 6 letter of the National Archives which revealed the ex-President had actually taken home 300 documents, some of which he returned early 2022.
Media speculates that Trump could have wantonly taken home intelligence reports on some people in his self-interest to use them as a bargaining chip or blackmail the DOJ to rescue him from any investigation against his keeping his end of the deal not to release them in the public domain. Some CIA documents pertain to nuclear technologies, and nuclear threats from third countries, if made public, could cause panic and have devastating consequences. Some others are investigations into Congressmen and Senators kept secret.