Toensing Appeals In Bid To Force Gov’t To Return Phone It Took

speaks during CNN's Media Conference For The Election of the President 2008 at the Time Warner Center on October 14, 2008 in New York City. 16950_4967.JPG
Former deputy assistant attorney general Victoria Toensing speaks during CNN's Media Conference For The Election of the President 2008 at the Time Warner Center on October 14, 2008 in New York City. 16950_4967.JPG (P... Former deputy assistant attorney general Victoria Toensing speaks during CNN's Media Conference For The Election of the President 2008 at the Time Warner Center on October 14, 2008 in New York City. 16950_4967.JPG (Photo by Joe Kohen/WireImage) MORE LESS
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Trump lawyer Victoria Toensing appealed a lower court ruling on Friday that rejected her request to have prosecutors return a search warrant executed on her.

In a brief filing, Toensing attorney Michael J. Bowe wrote that the conservative lawyer and Reagan-era federal prosecutor was appealing to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

Prosecutors executed a search warrant on Toensing’s phone in April, as they also searched Rudy Giuliani’s home, office, and electronic devices as part of the investigation.

Toensing and Giuliani both raised objections, and asked U.S. District Judge Paul Oetken for the Southern District of New York to allow them to have a look at the materials collected under the warrants and review them before they made their way back to the prosecutors.

Oetken denied that request, and this week appointed a special master to sort out what evidence prosecutors could use in the investigation.

Both Toensing and Giuliani accepted the choice of the special master, who served in the same role for the Michael Cohen investigation in 2018.

But now, Toensing has appealed the ruling which denied her the right to review materials taken from her pursuant to the search warrants. Prosecutors accused Toensing and Giuliani of trying to use their status as lawyers to argue that they were immune from criminal investigation.

Defense attorneys and former federal prosecutors told TPM last month that the requests were highly unusual, in part because they came before anyone had been charged in the matter. Discussions over what evidence can or cannot be used in a case typically come after an indictment, not before.

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