Justice Department subpoena storm broadens Trump’s potential legal woes https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/13/politics/trump-world-justice-department-subpoenas-analysis/index.html Prosecutor On Trump: ‘It’s Like That Boiling Frog That Doesn’t Realize The Temperature Has Been Turned Up Until Too Late https://dailyboulder.com/prosecutor...emperature-has-been-turned-up-until-too-late/
‘Should be game over’: DOJ ‘decimates’ Trump’s argument in new filing, according to legal expert https://www.rawstory.com/doj-special-master/ The United States Department of Justice criticized Donald Trump's legal arguments in a 12-page motion filed on Tuesday that mentions potential damage to national security in the first paragraph. Prosecutors are seeking a stay on Judge Aileen Cannon's ruling for a special master to allow the FBI to work with the rest of the intelligence community to investigate "just over 100 records marked as classified." The motion indicated the markings signify disclosures that "reasonably could be expected to result in damage to national security. In a footnote on the first page, prosecutors sought to debunk one of Trump's defenses. DOJ wrote Trump "has characterized the government’s criminal investigation as a 'document storage dispute' or an 'overdue library book scenario.' In doing so, [Trump] has not addressed the potential harms that could result from mishandling classified information or the strict requirements imposed by law for handling such materials," DOJ argued. The filing also said Trump "offers no response to the government’s multiple arguments demonstrating that he cannot plausibly assert executive privilege to prevent the Executive Branch itself from reviewing records that Executive Branch officials previously marked as classified." The filing also noted Trump "does not actually assert—much less provide any evidence—that any of the seized records bearing classification markings have been declassified." Former Pentagon special counsel Ryan Goodman said the brief "decimates Trump lawyers' brief" and said it "should be game over." "Brilliant moves here by DOJ," he explained. "First, they call Trump's bluff here -- that he has never asserted in court that he declassified/made records personal. Second, if he did declassify any, it would be hugely important for IC/FBI/DOJ to have those records to assess the impact." Goodman continued, "Next pointed and irrefutable argument by DOJ: If Trump wants to claim he made these records "personal," then his claim of executive privilege evaporates. Personal records = no executive privilege Trump's lawyers' and advisors (eg Tom Fitton) have dug themselves a hole here."
DOJ to Cannon: so are we good? Otherwise tomorrow, we gonna go over your head to the eleventh circuit.
You'll be shocked to hear this but legal experts are calling the legal arguments put forth by Trump's elite teams of lawyers: "muddled, confused and have a tendency to draw unwarranted conclusions". In Legal Fight Over Documents, 'a Lot of Smoke' From the Former President https://news.yahoo.com/legal-fight-over-documents-lot-121521120.html
Judge Keeps Block on Inquiry Into Mar-a-Lago Files and Appoints Special Master The Justice Department has threatened to go to an appeals court and seek an emergency stay if she did not agree to its proposal to resume a key part of the investigation. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/15/us/trump-documents-special-master.html WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Thursday rejected the Justice Department’s request to resume a key part of its inquiry into former President Donald J. Trump’s handling of sensitive government records and appointed an independent arbiter to oversee a review of documents seized from him last month. The judge, Aileen M. Cannon, appointed a candidate suggested by the Trump legal team and agreed upon by the government to sift through more than 11,000 records. The candidate was Raymond J. Dearie, a semiretired judge from the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of New York. In a 10-page decision, Judge Cannon, of the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Florida, declined to lift any part of an injunction she issued last week that barred the department from using any of those documents, including about 100 marked as classified, for investigative purposes until the special master had completed a review. The Justice Department had asked the judge to partly stay that order so it could immediately resume using the 100 or so documents marked as classified in that trove, saying the freeze was endangering national security. It also threatened to go to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, and seek an emergency stay if she did not agree to its proposal by Thursday. In a concession to that argument, she said Judge Dearie should first look at those documents “and thereafter consider prompt adjustments to the court’s orders as necessary.” That raised the possibility that the special master could quickly clear them and the judge might then permit the F.B.I. to resume using them. But Judge Cannon, whom Mr. Trump appointed in November 2020, declined to back down on having the special master vet those documents, too — and making the national-security officials wait, at least for now, until he does. In her order, Judge Cannon said she was unconvinced by the government’s arguments that Mr. Trump “could not possibly have a possessory interest” in the classified materials he took to Mar-a-Lago or that he had “no plausible claim of privilege as to any of these documents.” She also noted that the government was unlikely to “suffer an irreparable injury” if its investigation into Mr. Trump’s hoarding of the sensitive material was delayed by a special master’s review. “There has been no actual suggestion by the government of any identifiable emergency or imminent disclosure of classified information arising from” Mr. Trump’s “allegedly unlawful retention of the seized property,” she wrote. Judge Cannon’s decision was the latest turn in a battle between the Justice Department and lawyers for Mr. Trump over whether a special master should review the documents retrieved from Mr. Trump’s Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, last month. Last week, Judge Cannon, siding with Mr. Trump, issued an order announcing that she would appoint a special master to go over the materials and, in an unusual move, prevented prosecutors from using any of the records for any “investigative purpose” in the meantime. But as part of her order, Judge Cannon permitted the government to continue using the documents for a national-security risk assessment and classification review of the files. Days later, the Justice Department asked Judge Cannon to stay parts of her order, requesting that the F.B.I. be allowed to resume investigating matters related to about 100 of the seized files that had been marked as classified. The department argued that the bureau’s criminal investigation of the files was “inextricably linked” to the separate national-security reviews that she had said could continue. At the same time, the Justice Department filed notice that it was appealing her decision, telling Judge Cannon that if she did not agree to its requests for a stay by Thursday, it would ask the appeals court to intervene. In effect, the government had sought a compromise, acquiescing to Judge Cannon’s decision to impose a special master and, at least temporarily, to bar F.B.I. agents and prosecutors from working further with the overwhelming majority of the seized documents and other records. In return, the Justice Department asked Judge Cannon to let its investigators continue working with the smaller batch of records marked classified. The department noted in filings that intelligence agencies are barred from investigative activity on domestic soil and that the F.B.I. is the agency that traditionally gathers facts in similar situations. Prosecutors said that determining what happened to the classified files — and whether any were still missing — was not merely part of their criminal investigation, but also instrumental to the national-security review. To make their point, lawyers for the Justice Department specifically mentioned nearly 50 empty folders bearing classified banners that were found during the search of Mar-a-Lago. The lawyers said the F.B.I. needed to investigate what happened to the contents of the folders so intelligence officials could determine whether national security had been compromised. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has said that, after Judge Cannon’s order, it paused its risk assessment and classification review. For its part, Mr. Trump’s legal team had urged Judge Cannon not to back down from her initial order. His lawyers have insisted that the government’s claims were “exaggerated” and that only a “brief pause” would be required for the special master’s review to be completed. (They have said they think the review will take three months.) At the same time, Mr. Trump’s lawyers have said they believe that the order would allow the F.B.I. to take further actions related to the seized documents — including using investigative tools like subpoenas — if their purpose were to assist the intelligence community’s risk assessment, as opposed to assisting the criminal inquiry. That concession did not address whether an action that served both purposes would be permissible.
garbage appointments gonna garbage. what do we know of the Trump hand picked "special (retarded) master"? Can't be too bad if gov. agreed to him no?
They locked her away for 4 years for having one classified document. Reality Winner finds Trump’s Mar-a-Lago documents case ‘incredibly ironic’ Former intelligence contractor served four years in prison for leaking report on Russian interference in 2016 election https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...nner-donald-trump-documents-incredibly-ironic Reality Winner, the intelligence contractor who served more than four years in prison for leaking a report on Russian interference in the 2016 US election, has said she finds accusations that Donald Trump mishandled sensitive documents “incredibly ironic”, given her prosecution under his administration. An FBI search of the former president’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida last month found more than 300 classified documents. Speaking to NBC News, Winner, 30, said: “It is incredibly ironic, and I would just let the justice department sort it out.” Winner added that it “wasn’t hard to believe” Trump held on to classified documents. Reflecting on her own prison sentence, she said: “What I did when I broke the law was a political act at a very politically charged time.” Winner also said she did not believe Trump should go to prison. She did not comment further on whether the former president should face charges under the Espionage Act, as she did in 2017. “This is not a case where I expect to see any prison time,” Winner said, “and I’m just fine with that.” Winner was released early, on good behavior, in June 2021. While working as a national security contractor in Fort Gordon, Georgia, in 2017, Winner printed out a document that detailed how Russian military officials hacked into at least one supplier of voting software and attempted to breach at least 100 local election systems during the 2016 election. The document was labeled “Top Secret”. Winner took the document, which was later reported by the Intercept. An hour after the article was published, Winner was arrested at her Texas home and charged under the Espionage Act, a law created during the first world war. Under a plea deal, Winner was sentenced to more than five years in federal prison, the longest sentence ever given for leaking government information to the media. In an earlier interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes, Winner said that her motivation to leak came from deception around Russian interference in US elections. “The truth wasn’t true any more,” said Winner, who served in the US air force from 2010 to 2016. “The public was being lied to.” Winner is under probation until November 2024. She is not allowed to leave southern Texas, has a curfew and must note any interaction with the media. She is working as a CrossFit coach, NBC reported, and advocates for alternatives to prison for those found guilty of committing a crime. Winner’s interview with NBC came days after the 6 September death of the NSA’s most damaging leaker, Ronald Pelton, who in an unrelated case spent three decades in prison for selling government secrets to the Soviet Union during the cold war.
As expected... the appeal came so quickly they must have had written it in advance. US asks appeals court to lift judge’s Mar-a-Lago probe hold https://apnews.com/article/donald-t...and-politics-819a312522858f638a70cd9a0770d4a4 The Justice Department asked a federal appeals court Friday to lift a judge’s order that temporarily barred it from reviewing a batch of classified documents seized during an FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida home last month. The department told the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta that the judge’s hold was impeding the “government’s efforts to protect the nation’s security” and interfering with its investigation into the presence of top-secret information at Mar-a-Lago. It said the hold needed to be lifted immediately so work could resume. “The government and the public would suffer irreparable harm absent a stay,” department lawyers wrote in their brief to the appeals court. The judge’s appointment of a “special master” to review the documents, and the resulting legal tussle, appear certain to further slow the department’s criminal investigation. It remains unclear whether Trump, who has been laying the groundwork for another potential presidential run, or anyone else might be charged. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon earlier this month directed the department to halt its use of the records until further court order, or until the completion of a report of an independent arbiter who is to do his own inspection of the documents and weed out any covered by claims of legal privilege. On Thursday night, she assigned Raymond Dearie, the former chief judge of the federal court based in Brooklyn, to serve as the arbiter — also known as a special master. She also declined to lift an order that prevented the department from using for its investigation about 100 seized documents marked as classified, citing ongoing disputes about the nature of the documents that she said merited a neutral review. “The Court does not find it appropriate to accept the Government’s conclusions on these important and disputed issues without further review by a neutral third party in an expedited and orderly fashion,” she wrote. The Justice Department last week asked Cannon to put her own order on hold by Thursday, and said that if she did not, it would ask the appeals court to step in. The FBI says it took about 11,000 documents, including roughly 100 with classification markings found in a storage room and an office, while serving a court-authorized search warrant at the home. Weeks after the search, Trump lawyers asked a judge to appoint a special master to do an independent review of the records. In her Sept. 5 order, Cannon agreed to name a special master to sift through the records and filter out any that may be potentially covered by claims of executive privilege or attorney-client privilege. In appointing Dearie on Thursday, she granted him access to the entire tranche of documents, including classified records. She directed him to complete his review by Nov. 30 and to prioritize the review of classified documents, and directed the Justice Department to permit the Trump legal team to inspect classified records with “controlled access conditions.” The Justice Department disagreed with the judge that the special master should be empowered to inspect the classified records. It said the classified records that were seized do not contain communication between Trump and his lawyers that could be covered by attorney-client privilege, and said the former president could not credibly invoke executive privilege to shield government documents that do not belong to him from the investigation. Though the department had argued that its work was being unduly impeded by the judge’s order, Cannon disagreed, noting in her order Thursday that officials could proceed with other aspects of their investigation, such as interviewing witnesses.