Law Professor Says DOJ Photo of ‘TOP SECRET’ Mar-a-Lago Documents Could Be ‘Misleading’

Constitutional lawyer Jonathan Turley wrote that a newly disclosed FBI photo taken at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago could leave a “misleading impression.”

The image appears to show six documents labeled “top secret” and others dubbed “secret,” apparently captured inside Trump’s Florida residence during the FBI raid in early August. It was included toward the bottom of a government filing in response to Trump’s motion seeking a special master, or a neutral third party, to review the materials before the Department of Justice (DOJ).

“The picture could be seen by many that secret documents were strewn over the floor when this appears the method used by the FBI to isolate classified documents. It also seems entirely superfluous in releasing this one picture,” Turley wrote Wednesday.

Turley, a professor of constitutional law at George Washington University, said that the DOJ’s choice to include the photo is unusual and could easily be taken out of context.

“It is curious that the DOJ would release this particular picture which suggests classified material laying around on the floor,” according to the legal scholar. “The point is to state a fact that hardly needs an optical confirmation: the possession of documents with classified cover sheets. Indeed, the top of roughly half of the documents are redacted in photo. The government could simply affirmatively state the fact of the covered pages and would not likely be challenged on that point without the inclusion of this one photo.”

Turley then suggested that the release of the photo follows a pattern of “exaggerated claims” that are being made about the case and the FBI raid and “may appear” to be “another effort (with prior leaks) to help frame the public optics and discussion.”

“Clearly the court did not need the visual aid of a picture of documents with covers. It

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