Team Trump admits their client is defenseless

or How the special master gambit has cost The Donald, Dear(ie),ly

Judges, for the most part, are well versed in the art of tying Gordian knots in their decisions and court orders; and unless your attorney is a legal Alexander the Great, there is little chance of overcoming their complicated bows.

Judge Raymond Dearie, who is serving as the special master in the Mar-a-Lago documents case, issued a case management order that basically forced Donald Trump’s hand defense-wise. The order demanded Trump prove his assertions that the FBI planted evidence, that Donald Trump prove he declassified certain seized documents - while president, and to make the distinction whether Donald Trump is asserting attorney-client privilege or executive privilege regarding what was seized.

On the last point, it is worth noting that Judge Dearie has been on the federal bench since 1986 (he took senior status in 2011) and he has been less than pleased with Judge Cannon, who hasn’t hit 2 years on the bench yet.¹ Judge Cannon’s failure to make the distinction between attorney-client privilege and executive privilege has been central to the critiques of her decision favoring Donald Trump. Federally speaking, the only person who can assert executive privilege in 2022 is a guy named Joe Biden.

An important concept since at a recent court hearing with Trump’s lawyers, this happened:

Unfortunately, on the matter of the case management order, Team Trump demurred on everything² and objected to assering any position at all.³ Curiously, it was filed under seal.

Much more unfortunate (for Donald Trump) is that the Department of Justice called Team Trump’s bluff⁴ and filed a very succinct “unsealed” response.⁵

The response points out much of the obvious in what is at this point still a civil matter:

Donald Trump has no proof of “planted evidence” or “declassification”,

Any claim of “executive privilege” is going to fail,

And if a connection is made between the killings of CIA informants overseas and Trump’s possession of Top Secret documents, he will face prosecution on more serious sections of the Espionage Act.

Brandon Friedman @BFriedmanDC

The implication of this NYT story is that Trump may have sold classified information that later got informants killed. It's important to note that's exactly what Robert Hanssen did and the Justice Department called it "the worst intelligence disaster in U.S. history."

🇺🇦Paula Chertok🗽🇺🇦 @PaulaChertok

“Last year, a top-secret memo sent to every C.I.A. station around the world, warned about troubling numbers of informants being captured or killed” Trump Inquiry Fueled in Part by Concern Over Human Intelligence Sources in Documents Trump Improperly Took https://t.co/rDD2qOOMvN

Politically, if that connection is made — all but a few of Trump’s loyalists will admit to even knowing him.

1. https://www.salon.com/2022/09/28/special-master-rebukes-that-appointed-him-for-order-that-made-no-sense_partner/

2. https://www.salon.com/2022/09/23/put-up-or-shut-up-moment-special-master-corners-lawyers-on-his-planted-evidence-claims/

3. https://www.salon.com/2022/09/23/put-up-or-shut-up-moment-special-master-corners-lawyers-on-his-planted-evidence-claims/

4. https://www.salon.com/2022/09/28/new-doj-filing-exposes-trumps-secret-objections--and-asks-special-master-to-call-his-bluff/

5. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763.121.0.pdf