Trump news today latest: Ex-president says FBI staged Mar-a-Lago photo in Truth Social rant as Palin loses Alaska election

After tit-for-tat filings from the Trump legal team and the Department of Justice, a Trump-appointed judge in West Palm Beach will today hear the ex-president’s lawyers argue for a special master to be appointed to sift through the documents seized by the FBI on 8 August. The hearing is scheduled for 1pm ET.

It comes after a disastrous 24 hours for Donald Trump’s lawyers. Their response last night to the DoJ’s filing being ridiculed as “gibberish”, whileattorney Alina Habba has confirmed on Fox News that Mr Trump regularly received guests in the office where some of the papers were found. The ex-president himself, meanwhile, has apparently confirmed in a Truth Social post that the documents he previously suggested had been planted by agents were, in fact, in his possession, albeit in “cartons” rather than strewn over his office carpet.

The department argued in its Monday filing that the Trump lawyer’s request for a special master “fails for multiple, independent reasons” – among them that Mr Trump “lacks standing to seek judicial relief or oversight as to Presidential records because those records do not belong to him”.

For more on the latest legal back-and-forth, here’s Andrew Feinberg.

Alina Habba, one of the several attorneys on Donald Trump’s current legal team, appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show last night to discuss the FBI’s picture of multiple classified documents strewn across the floor of the ex-president’s office at his Mar-a-Lago residence. And in the course of her appearance, she made what many observers have characterised as a serious misstep.

In her telling, she herself has been in the office, and Mr Trump “he has guests frequently there” – thus placing herself at the scene where the documents were found, and also confirming concerns that others besides Mr Trump had access to places where they were kept.

Read more from Maroosha Muzaffar.

Donald Trump is weighing waiting until the midterm elections in November to launch his third bid for presidency as the legal probe against him deepens, reported CNN citing sources.

“Everyone was operating under the assumption that shortly after Labor Day would be the best possible time to launch, but that has changed and he’s being told to deal with the FBI stuff first,” a Trump adviser was quoted as saying.

“There is a direct tie if Trump becomes a campaign ad in November and Republicans lose the Senate, and the last thing he wants is to be blamed,” another former Trump campaign aide said.

Ex-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe has reacted to former president Donald Trump’s formal response in court to the Justice Department’s filing, which revealed new details about the Mar-a-Lago investigation.

“It’s all over the map,” he said in an appearance on CNN.

Donald Trump has accused the FBI of staging a photo of secret documents on the floor of his Mar-a-Lago home insisting, “They dropped them not me.”

Similar claims have been made by various of his surrogates, including lawyer Alina Habba, who are now focusing on criticising the release and composition of the photo as opposed to explaining why its contents were present in the president’s office.

Former CIA director John Brennan has hit out at Donald Trump as the probe into whether he held classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence deepems.

“Therefore, it’s clearly [sic] that he had nefarious intentions which is why I think it’s so important that the Department of Justice and the FBI and the intelligence community get to the bottom of this, because there’s nothing short of our national security that is at stake,” he said on MSNBC’S “The ReidOut”.

An attorney for Donald Trump unwittingly admitted that the former president “frequently” had guests in the room where top secret papers were found.

“I’m somebody who has been in his office.. I have firsthand knowledge. I have never seen that. That is not the way his office looks.. He has guests frequently there,” Alina Habba was quoted as saying to Fox News.

Former president Donald Trump is now accusing FBI agents of staging a photograph taken during the 8 August search of his home and office to “make [him] look bad” and repeating his previous claim to have declassified the entire lot of highly sensitive documents found there.

Former president Donald Trump’s hoarding of highly classified national defence information at the Palm Beach, Florida, home could bring about a level of damage to US intelligence operations not seen in decades, according to current and former intelligence community officials and experts who spoke to The Independent.

Andrew Feinberg assesses the potential impact on US intelligence.

Alex Woodward profiles the former far-right OAN anchor now at centre of Mar-a-Lago probe.