The DOJ doesn't trust what Trump's lawyers say because he often changes his mind.
The agency thinks it can't rely on his attorneys because he doesn't give them the information they need.
The FBI's raid on Mar-a-Lago has been panned by many.
The officials at the Justice Department think they can't rely on what Trump's lawyers say.
According to The New York Times, department officials have been in contact with Trump's representatives for months while trying to recover hundreds of pages of government records that were moved from the White House to Mar-a-Lago.
According to the report, the Justice Department works under the assumption that Trump's lawyers can't speak with authority because he can change his mind at the drop of a hat.
Insider reported on what former prosecutors and lawyers who worked for Trump said.
It's hard to tell if his lawyers are following his advice or if he's following his own.
An attorney who is familiar with the thought process of the Trump team expressed skepticism that the former president's lawyers are capable of handling a case like this.
"He's a big believer in the public relations assault, which I've never seen before," the lawyer said. It says to me that they want to kill the messenger and use guilt instead of facts.
The FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month and recovered 26 boxes of documents, some of which were highly classified, that were being stored on the property. After months of back and forth between Trump's lawyers, the National Archives, and the Justice Department, the raid took place.
The National Archives was given 15 boxes by Trump in January.
The Justice Department launched an investigation into Trump's handling of national security information, and found that he probably had more documents at Mar-a-Lago. A top counterintelligence official from the DOJ went to Mar-a-Lago to collect the boxes after a grand jury subpoenaed the records.
All classified materials had been returned according to a statement signed by one of Trump's lawyers. The FBI found 11 sets of classified documents when it searched Mar-a-Lago.
When Trump's team filed a lawsuit this week asking a judge to block the Justice Department from reviewing records seized in the raid until a special master was appointed, the legal community was not happy.
Some Justice Department veterans said that the lawsuit was more of a press release than it was a complaint. It showed a fundamental misunderstanding of how executive privilege works.
On Monday evening, the federal judge seemed to join other legal experts in their confusion.
The judge asked the former president's lawyers why they brought the case to her and what they were looking for.
Cannon ordered Trump's lawyers to respond by Friday with more information on several points, including the "asserted basis for the exercise of this court's jurisdiction," "the framework applicable to the exercise of such jurisdiction," and precise relief they're seeking.
Business Insider has an article on it.
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