Bloomberg News correspondent Zoe Tillman scored a major scoop on Tuesday when she reported that under-seal Mar-a-Lago search documents were posted online.
"The thousands of documents seized from former President Donald Trump’s Florida home included a mix of government, business and personal affairs, including analysis about who should get a pardon, call notes marked with a presidential seal, retainer agreements for lawyers and accountants, and legal bills, according to newly disclosed logs created by federal investigators," Tillman reported. "The detailed lists of seized materials were attached to a recently unsealed Aug. 30 report from the Justice Department. A judge had ordered the logs stay under seal but they appeared to be inadvertently posted to the public court docket. They’re no longer publicly visible."
Tillman's scoop came the same day Trump appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"In its Aug. 30 report that included the logs, the Justice Department explained to the judge how the privilege review team did the initial search at Mar-a-Lago. The team was assigned to flag documents that might be covered by attorney-client privilege -- for instance, records that referred to lawyers or legal work," Bloomberg News reported. "Those records were set aside and kept separate from Justice Department attorneys and FBI agents managing the criminal probe. The filter team identified 520 pages -- out of what Trump’s lawyers have said is a collection of 200,000 seized pages -- that warranted a closer look, but later determined very few of those could fall under any legal privileges."
In the end, 383 pages were flagged to be returned to Trump.
"The Justice Department failed to persuade a judge in Florida that the filter process meant there was no need for an outside special master to go through the documents so the 521 pages are now part of US District Senior Judge Raymond Dearie’s review," Tillman noted.
Read the full report.