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Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida
Photo: MARCO BELLO / REUTERS
According to the former US President, Donald Trump's lawyers are to present evidence in court that the FBI planted secret documents on Trump.
This is what a US judge dealing with the case called for.
The FBI searched Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in August.
According to the US Department of Justice, more than 11,000 documents were seized during the raid, including about 100 documents marked as secret.
The background to the investigation is the allegation that Trump violated the law by keeping the documents in his private estate after the end of his term of office, for example by violating confidentiality or archiving requirements.
Trump and his lawyers criticize the authorities' actions as politically motivated.
In this case, the ex-president could face criminal proceedings.
Ministry of Justice to create inventory
Federal judge Raymond Dearie, as a so-called special master, was initially commissioned by the court to examine the documents at Trump's request.
As an independent expert, he was supposed to decide whether some of the secret documents should be withheld from the investigators as privileged, until then the investigators should not have access to the documents - but a higher authority conceded this procedure again on Wednesday.
This is a preliminary decision.
The US Department of Justice can now continue to evaluate the secret documents until the matter is finally decided.
On Thursday, Judge Dearie asked the Justice Department to provide a detailed inventory of the documents seized by Monday.
Then Trump's lawyers should clarify by next Friday, September 30, which of the documents mentioned "were not confiscated from the premises".
By that date, they can also submit any corrections to the government's list, such as listing documents they believe were confiscated at Mar-a-Lago but are not on the inventory.
This is Trump's last opportunity to "raise factual objections to the completeness and accuracy of the detailed inventory," Dearie wrote.
Dearie and Trump's lawyers have no insight at first
With the decision of the court of appeals, Dearie and Trump's lawyers have no access to the secret documents for the time being.
In particular, the court emphasized that Trump had not provided any evidence that around a hundred secret files were required or that he had declassified the rest of the documents.
Even before the appeals court's decision, Trump had claimed on Fox News that as a president one could declassify documents by labeling them "declassified."
It is enough just to think about it.
»You are the President, you make this decision.«
Notably, two of the three appellate court judges were installed by Trump himself.
It should therefore be difficult for him, as in other cases, to assume that the judiciary is biased.
However, Trump still has the option of taking the matter to the Supreme Court, the US Supreme Court.
kko/Reuters