Former President Donald Trump’s lawyer said Tuesday that the 45th president will attempt to challenge the legality of the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago based on his Fourth Amendment rights.
“In terms of what we do in the future, you know, there’s this Fourth Amendment like you brought up, there’s a fourth amendment issue here; the warrant was way too broad,” Trump attorney Alina Habba told Fox News on Tuesday night.
Habba then pointed to the judge in the case, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed by Trump in 2020. Cannon is not the same judge—U.S. magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart—who signed off on the FBI warrant.
Last week, Cannon signaled in a court filing that she will likely sign off on appointing a special master to review documents that were taken from Mar-a-Lago. Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers said this week that a filter team has already looked into the documents and added that what appears to be attorney-client privileged information was taken.
“We do have judge Cannon, who’s the federal judge that’s taken up this case,” Habba said. “There’s a hearing on Thursday. I think that that will be giving us some judicial oversight that is much needed at this point.”
“So at this point, I think the best thing we’ve done is we’ve gotten a judge in place ... who does look like they’re going to be active,” Habba said, adding that soon, “we do need to move forward with filing to invalidate ... the warrants due to Fourth Amendment issues.”
The Fourth Amendment guarantees a right to privacy and protects individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government.
“But we don’t have all the information yet. We still don’t even have a completely unredacted affidavit. They won’t share it with the legal team, let alone the public seems to know more than we do,” Habba added. “So it’s a problem. And I think that the FBI is going to have major problems.”
The affidavit, which DOJ officials sought to block from being released, was ordered unsealed by Reinhart last week, although it was significantly redacted. Few new details were provided, although it stated the DOJ has probable cause to believe that allegedly classified documents and materials were being kept at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump, meanwhile, has said he declassified the materials at Mar-a-Lago, pointing to an executive order and statements he made in late 2020 and early 2021 when he was still in office. A day before departing the White House, Trump signed an order to declassify some FBI Crossfire Hurricane materials.
