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An attorney for former President Donald Trump poured cold water on releasing any security footage of the FBI searching Mar-a-Lago.
During an interview on Fox News with host Sean Hannity, attorney Alina Habba said Trump likely wouldn’t release the footage because he “cares too much” about the federal agents.
Hannity asked Habba if Trump planned to release the security footage from Mar-a-Lago showing the FBI carrying out the search.
Habba said the legal team would discuss what the footage shows, but said “I don’t know” if they will release the videos.
“The truth is, unlike some of these federal agencies, we don’t leak. We follow the rules,” Habba said.
“You know why we wouldn’t honestly, Sean, because the president cares too much about the agents and the enforcement that were just doing their job,” Habba said. “And we have been told that their lives could be put at risk.”
WATCH:
Her comments come after a special master was appointed by a federal judge to examine documents seized by the FBI during a raid on Mar-a-Lago.
Former chief federal judge Raymond Dearie, appointed by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon earlier this month, directed attorneys for Trump and the Justice Department to come to New York City for a “preliminary conference.”
Lawyers for the two parties are being asked to submit “proposed agenda items” to discuss by Sept. 19, the outlet added.
FBI officials say agents recovered around 100 items marked as ‘classified’ during the raid, though Trump has said he previously declassified everything in his possession before leaving office per his authority as president.
Dearie was appointed by Cannon, a Trump appointee, who declined a request by the Department of Justice to lift the temporary prohibition of the department’s usage of around 100 classified records which were taken from Mar-a-Lago during the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s search on Aug. 8.
The former veteran chief federal judge will review and separate documents that are covered by claims of privilege.
The Justice Department’s investigation, which is being delayed by the special master process, is reviewing documents recovered by the FBI during its search of Trump’s Florida property.
Dearie was first nominated to the federal bench in 1986 by then-President Ronald Reagan.
A former top U.S. spy chief has said he believes the FBI came up short during its Aug. 8 raid.
John Ratcliffe, a former U.S. congressman from Texas whom Trump tapped to serve as director of national intelligence, told Fox News last week that the bureau “didn’t find what they were looking” for, based on his observations.
“I was a former federal prosecutor, United States attorney. Let me tell you what this is about. Good prosecutors with good cases play it straight. They don’t need to play games,” Ratcliffe said, in reference to Justice Department officials. “They don’t need to shop for judges, they don’t need to leak intelligence that may or may not exist.”
The Justice Department’s arguments against having a federal court appoint a special master to review allegedly classified documents “tells you that the government didn’t find what they were looking for,” Ratcliffe continued.
“There weren’t nuclear secrets” at Trump’s estate, he noted further, “and they’re trying to justify what they’ve done. They’re not playing it straight before the American people. I think that that’s going to play out.”
In late August, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who served as one of Trump’s top lawyers and is himself a former federal prosecutor, responded to the Justice Department’s unsealing of the affidavit used to authorize the FBI’s raid.
