Nine days after the FBI executed a search and seizure warrant on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago buffet and retirement condo, the Bureau’s “filter team” is still combing through the boxes of documents to determine if any are covered by legitimate claims of privilege, NBC News reports.
The filter team, an independent group of FBI agents and lawyers, read all the documents to decide what’s relevant to the investigation, what may be covered by attorney-client privilege, and what can be returned to the owner. In the case of the documents seized at Mar-a-Lago, the filter team is also determining which documents contain classified material, whether or not it is marked.
The raid was carried out by a specific unit within the DOJ, the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, which the Department of Justice says “supervises the investigation and prosecution of cases affecting national security, foreign relations, and the export of military and strategic commodities and technology.”
That unit has executive responsibility to investigate cases involving espionage and atomic energy, among other high-security issues relating to the national security of the United States. The inclusion of this unit means the DOJ had significant evidence and belief that the documents stored at Mar-a-Lago were highly-sensitive information that needed higher security.