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President Donald Trump departs after speaking at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2025 (Pool via AP).
In a recent court filing, the U.S. Department of Justice cited the FBI’s previous raid on Mar-a-Lago as a precedent to support the recent search of Fulton County’s election facilities. The filing, issued on Friday, seeks to reinforce the legality of the federal actions undertaken in Georgia.
The 14-page motion from Trump administration attorneys draws parallels between two key legal decisions related to the Mar-a-Lago incident: one that was made prior to the raid and another stemming from the subsequent legal battles over documents seized at the Florida estate.
The controversy in Georgia began when Robb Pitts, Chairman of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, filed an emergency motion against the federal authorities. Pitts is demanding the return of “all original seized materials” from the 2020 election, which includes around 656 boxes of ballots, ballot images, tabulators, and voter rolls.
Since this legal challenge commenced, the case has seen a flurry of filings from both sides.
On Tuesday, Fulton County submitted an updated version of its original motion for the return of their election materials. In response, the Trump administration is countering by invoking the legal framework established by the Mar-a-Lago case to justify the FBI’s actions in Fulton County.
Fulton County’s latest iteration of its request is premised on Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(g), which reads, in full:
A person aggrieved by an unlawful search and seizure of property or by the deprivation of property may move for the property’s return. The motion must be filed in the district where the property was seized. The court must receive evidence on any factual issue necessary to decide the motion. If it grants the motion, the court must return the property to the movant, but may impose reasonable conditions to protect access to the property and its use in later proceedings.
“The seizure, which callously disregarded Petitioners’ constitutional rights, requires immediate equitable relief from this Court—namely, an order directing Respondent to return the original copy of the seized election records,” the county officials argued.
The DOJ counters that Fulton County is trying to expand the reach of the procedural rule.
“Rule 41(g) does not contemplate freewheeling inquiries into federal criminal investigations,” the DOJ’s motion reads – before it directly cites an 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in the Mar-a-Lago case. “‘Only the narrowest of circumstances permit a district court’ to grant any relief under Rule 41(g).”
In 2022, the 11th Circuit issued a direct rejoinder to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon – overruling the Trump appointee after she slammed the brakes on the initial criminal case by appointing a special master.
In effect, the Trump administration now cites an appeals court ruling that put Trump himself in criminal jeopardy. In doing so, the DOJ also cites Trump’s own failure to reclaim the Mar-a-Lago documents as justification for why Fulton County should not be able to retrieve its own documents.
The DOJ’s filing contains five separate references to the 11th Circuit’s ruling. Aside from the broad argument against using Rule 41(g) for relief, the federal government cites the appellate opinion to support the Fulton County raid and to argue there is no need for an evidentiary hearing.
In late January, the warrant was signed by U.S. Magistrate Judge Catherine Salinas in the afternoon of Jan. 28. The raid was carried out later that same day. Notably, both Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and FBI Deputy Director Andrew Bailey appeared on the scene as FBI agents carried the boxes into federal vehicles.
The DOJ, citing the opinion, casts Salinas in the mold of the original magistrate judge who issued the Mar-a-Lago warrant.
From the filing, at length:
Petitioners cannot use Rule 41(g) to argue this affidavit did not actually establish probable cause. “The magistrate judge decided that issue when approving the warrant.” It is exceedingly difficult to show “callous disregard of constitutional rights” in that circumstance, and Petitioners do not come close. Among many other reasons, the United States executed the search warrant at issue here only after Judge Salinas found that the supporting affidavit established probable cause. Preparing an exceedingly detailed affidavit and presenting it to a federal judge for a probable-cause determination is the exact opposite of “callous disregard” for Petitioners’ constitutional rights.
Later on, the DOJ anticipates that Fulton County will try to improperly “fish for investigative information for their own benefit” if the court grants a hearing under the auspices of Rule 41(g).
Again, the Trump administration relies on the 11th Circuit ruling.
“Precedent imposes extraordinary burdens and limitations on requests like Petitioners’ precisely because such demands ‘unnecessar[ily] interfere with the executive branch’s criminal enforcement authority,’” the motion goes on. “Accordingly, the Eleventh Circuit has refused to ‘requir[e] federal courts to oversee routine criminal investigations beyond their constitutionally ascribed role of approving a search warrant based on a showing of probable cause.’”
The upshot of the DOJ filing is a request to cancel an upcoming evidentiary hearing in the case currently slated to occur on Feb. 27, as well as a bid to quash a subpoena for the testimony of an FBI special agent who penned an affidavit submitted as part of the government’s original application for the Fulton County search warrant.