President Donald Trump departs after speaking at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2025 (Pool via AP).
The U.S. Department of Justice favorably referred to the years-old FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago as precedent in order to justify the recent FBI raid on Fulton County's election hub in a Friday court filing.
In a 14-page motion, Trump administration lawyers singled out two legal aspects of the Mar-a-Lago case – one court decision before the raid ever occurred; and one decision from the ensuing courtroom battle over the trove of documents found at the Palm Beach resort.
The Georgia case began when Fulton County Board of Commissioners Chairman Robb Pitts filed an emergency motion against the federal government, requesting the return of "all original seized materials" from the 2020 election, including some "656 boxes containing the original versions" of ballots, ballot images, tabulators, and voter rolls.
Since then, the docket has swelled with back-and-forth filings.
On Tuesday, Fulton County filed an updated version of its original request for the return of seized property. Now, the Trump administration is pushing back by invoking the Mar-a-Lago raid.
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.
Matt Naham contributed to this report.