China News Service, August 15. According to comprehensive US media reports, former US President Trump posted on social media on the 14th local time, calling on the FBI to return the documents confiscated at Mar-a-Lago, saying that these documents Protected by Attorney-Client Privilege and Executive Privilege.
Trump reportedly said that “the FBI took boxes of materials protected by attorney-client and executive privilege during the Mar-a-Lago raid that they knew they should not have taken” and demanded “immediately. Return these documents to where they were taken."
File photo: Trump.
"Attorney-client privilege" keeps communications between attorneys and their clients private during investigations, while "executive privilege" allows the president to keep some communications private from Congress and the Supreme Court.
But "executive privilege" is not absolute.
During Watergate, the Supreme Court ruled in Nixon that "executive privilege" could not be used to withhold evidence "clearly relevant to a criminal trial."
According to a court document released on the 12th, the FBI seized 11 classified documents during the Mar-a-Lago raid, some of which were marked as "top secret" or "sensitive quarantined information."
The search warrant released by the court also identified three federal crimes under investigation by the Justice Department, including violations of the Espionage Act, obstruction of justice and criminal handling of government documents.
Relevant charges could result in fines or imprisonment if convicted.
No one has been charged with the crime yet.
Trump said in a statement that day that the documents seized by FBI agents had been "all declassified" and argued that if the Justice Department had asked him to hand over them, he would do so.