The Justice Department has long signaled that some of its chief witnesses in the so-called grand conspiracy investigation into a wide array of President Trump’s enemies would be a group of former F.B.I. agents who worked on the search for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Florida.
Prosecutors working on the case have indicated that the former agents could likely provide evidence that the search of the property in August 2022 was improper or even illegal. Moreover, they have suggested, the search was part of a broader plot by law enforcement and intelligence officials scrutinizing Mr. Trump over the past 10 years to hurt his political prospects.
On Monday, however, lawyers for the former agents threw cold water on that theory. In court papers, they asserted that if their clients were forced to appear in front of a grand jury hearing evidence in the grand conspiracy case, they would testify that the search of Mar-a-Lago — like other aspects of the classified documents prosecution — was, in fact, conducted fairly and in keeping with the law.
All of the former agents were fired by the F.B.I. as part of a purge of investigators who took part in criminal inquiries of Mr. Trump. Some of them were subpoenaed this week to appear before the grand jury as early as next week.
But if called to testify, their lawyers wrote, “Clients will each detail their firsthand memories of investigating a properly predicated allegation that then-citizen Trump had unlawfully retained hundreds of highly classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence.”
“This recollection,” the lawyers added, “would also include clients’ factually supported opinions on why and how such retention put the country’s national security at risk.”
The papers, filed in Federal District Court in Fort Pierce, Fla., where the grand jury has been sitting, were the latest setback in the case, which has already suffered a series of embarrassing impediments.
Two weeks ago, Joseph diGenova, the prosecutor in charge of the inquiry, abruptly quit his job after facing pressure to bring charges from his superiors in Washington. Mr. diGenova’s sudden departure came only five months after his predecessor was removed from the case after finding that there was not enough evidence for charges to be filed.
The assertion by the former agents that they would most likely hinder, not help, the grand conspiracy inquiry was a reminder of just how far-fetched the Justice Department’s theory of the case has been all along. From the outset, prosecutors have been struggling to argue that several disparate investigations into Mr. Trump — including the classified documents case and a separate investigation into ties between Russia and his 2016 presidential campaign — were part of a single plot to deprive him of his rights.
While the papers filed in Fort Pierce seemed to throw a roadblock in the grand conspiracy case, that was not their purpose. The lawyers for the former agents primarily wanted to ensure that if their clients were compelled to appear before the grand jury, their testimony would not violate a judge’s order barring any discussion of the details of the classified documents prosecution outside the confines of the Justice Department.
That order was issued earlier this year by Judge Aileen M. Cannon, one of Mr. Trump’s most sympathetic judicial appointees. Judge Cannon handled the classified documents case and is now overseeing the grand jury investigation in the grand conspiracy case.
The ruling permanently barred the Justice Department from releasing a report by the special counsel Jack Smith detailing Mr. Trump’s mishandling classified material after he left the White House in 2021. It has effectively kept the public from seeing the report — one of the most significant parts of Mr. Smith’s twin prosecutions of Mr. Trump that has yet to see the light of day.
In the court papers, the agents’ lawyers asked Judge Cannon for another order clarifying that their clients could tell the grand jury about their experiences investigating Mr. Trump without running afoul of her earlier order. The lawyers said that without such a ruling, they were concerned that the former agents would have to choose between not appearing and risking being held in contempt, and testifying and violating the ban on speaking about the documents case.
“Absent a clarifying order from this court,” the lawyers wrote, “clients will be placed between the horns of a dilemma — where either answering questions or declining to do so could put them in legal peril.”
Judge Cannon’s central role in the grand conspiracy investigation has long prompted criticism that the Justice Department steered the case to her on purpose, hoping for favorable rulings.
In December, lawyers for one of the main targets of the inquiry, John O. Brennan, a former C.I.A. director, wrote a letter to Judge Cannon’s boss, asking her to prevent Judge Cannon from handling the case. That request accused the Justice Department of seeking to “manipulate grand jury and case assignment procedures.” But it was apparently denied.
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