A criminal investigation into the presence of top-secret information at former President Donald Trump’s Florida home has “spiraled out of control,” his lawyers said Monday in urging a judge to leave in place a directive that temporarily halted core aspects of the Justice Department’s probe.

What You Need To Know

  • In a new filing, former President Trump's attorneys asked a judge to block the DOJ's request to continue reviewing documents seized from Mar-a-Lago last month

  • U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon last week granted the Trump team’s request for an independent special master to review the seized documents, and prohibited for now the department from examining the documents for investigative purposes

  • The Justice Department has asked the judge to lift that hold and said it would appeal her ruling to a federal appeals court

  • Trump’s lawyers said in their own motion Monday that the order was a “sensible preliminary step towards restoring order from chaos," calling the probe "misguided" and claiming it has "spiraled out of control"

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon last week granted the Trump team’s request for the appointment of an independent arbiter to review records seized during an FBI search of Mar-a-Lago last month, and prohibited for now the department from examining the documents for investigative purposes.

The Justice Department has asked the judge to lift that hold and said it would appeal her ruling to a federal appeals court.

But Trump’s lawyers said in their own motion Monday that the order was a “sensible preliminary step towards restoring order from chaos.”

“This investigation of the 45th President of the United States is both unprecedented and misguided,” they wrote. “In what at its core is a document storage dispute that has spiraled out of control, the Government wrongfully seeks to criminalize the possession by the 45th President of his own Presidential and personal records.”

Trump's attorneys asserted in their filing that claims "of 'irreparable harm' to the Government 'and the public'" are "exaggerated," and called Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate "a secure, controlled access compound utilized regularly to conduct the official business of the United States during the Trump Presidency, which to this day is monitored by the United States Secret Service."

"The Government argues that the Intelligence Community review of documents now solely in the FBI’s possession cannot withstand a brief pause," the lawyers wrote in their filing. "Moreover, the Government contends that the FBI and ODNI, and their personnel, are so inseparable they are incapable of having agents outside the criminal case participate in the ODNI-led investigation."

"This convenient, and belated, claim by the government relative to enjoining the criminal team’s access to these documents only arises because the F.B.I. concedes the intelligence community review is actually just another facet of its criminal investigation," they added.

In the filing, Trump's attorneys appeared to suggest that some of the documents may not be classified and should remain with the former president.

"The Government generally points to the alleged urgent need to conduct a risk assessment of possible unauthorized disclosure of purported 'classified records,' the filing reads. "But there is no indication any purported 'classified records' were disclosed to anyone."

This is a developing story. Check back later for updates.