Two US constitutional lawyers, David Rivkin Jr. and Lee Casey, who both served under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, have set out the argument for the lack of a legal basis to the warrant used by the FBI to search former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago mansion. “His possession of them is entirely consistent with that right, and therefore lawful, regardless of the statutes the FBI cites in its warrant,” Rivkin and Casey wrote in an Article in The Wall Street Journal.
“Those statutes are general in their text and application. But Mr. Trump’s documents are covered by a specific statute, the Presidential Records Act of 1978,” they said, adding that a Supreme Court decision in 1974 affirms their argument. “The former president’s rights under the [Presidential Records Act] trump any application of the laws the FBI warrant cites.”