Judge Grants Trump’s Special Master Motion

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Re: Judge Grants Trump’s Special Master Motion

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canpakes wrote:
Tue Sep 20, 2022 2:22 pm
And now, this -
Trump team resists special master's request to explain declassification of Mar-a-Lago documents

Former President Trump’s legal team on Monday night resisted a request to elaborate on his claims around declassifying the documents recovered last month from his Mar-a-Lago home. In a filing to the court-appointed special master that Trump requested, his attorneys said the “time and place” for making such a disclosure would come in a motion in a criminal trial as an effort to recover his property.

“Otherwise, the Special Master process will have forced the Plaintiff to fully and specifically disclose a defense to the merits of any subsequent indictment without such a requirement being evident in the District Court’s order,” Trump’s legal team wrote.

The resistance comes after Trump’s attorneys insinuated the former president declassified the more than 300 documents recovered from his Florida home but stopped short of fully making the claim in court filings.

“The government’s stance assumes that if a document has a classification marking, it remains classified irrespective of any actions taken during President Trump’s term in office,” Trump’s legal team wrote in a filing last week.

“There is no legitimate contention that the chief executive’s declassification of documents requires approval of bureaucratic components of the executive branch,” they added.

The Justice Department’s legal team seized on the hinting from Trump’s lawyer in their next filing.

“Plaintiff principally seeks to raise questions about the classification status of the records and their categorization under the Presidential Records Act (‘PRA’). But plaintiff does not actually assert — much less provide any evidence — that any of the seized records bearing classification markings have been declassified,” the department wrote.

“Such possibilities should not be given weight absent plaintiff’s putting forward competent evidence,” it added.

Though presidents have broad power to declassify records, doing so sets off a chain of events, as the intelligence agencies that manage such records must take additional steps.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts on Monday filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking the “standing” declassification order that Trump — outside of court filings — has pointed to in explaining the tranche of record in his home.

As Trump has fought to stop Justice Department from reviewing the classified records, the department has argued he could have no possible claim to the documents, saying their classification labels indicate they are government and not personal property and that Trump has no reason to stop the executive branch from reviewing them.
It’s hard to divine exactly what the Special Master asked from Trump’s response. I saw something about today’s conference call being publicly available, so the SM’s questions may be clearer after that. (Starts 2:00 pm EST).
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Re: Judge Grants Trump’s Special Master Motion

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The 11th Cir. has granted the government’s motion for partial stay. That means the special master will not be reviewing the documents marked classified. And Trump’s lawyers will not be reviewing them.

https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000183 ... ff83050000

The vote was 3-0. Two were appointed by Trump.
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Re: Judge Grants Trump’s Special Master Motion

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Res Ipsa wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 12:02 am
The 11th Cir. has granted the government’s motion for partial stay. That means the special master will not be reviewing the documents marked classified. And Trump’s lawyers will not be reviewing them.

https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000183 ... ff83050000

The vote was 3-0. Two were appointed by Trump.
Wow! Things are looking worse and worse not only for Trump but also for Judge Aileen Cannon. Surely she must be at least beginning to see how poorly this reflects on her integrity and competence. I think that if I were her, I would at least be starting to consider the possibility of resigning in disgrace and embarrassment.

Or is she deliberately trying to make sure Trump has enough rope to hang himself? I have the feeling that after Trump fails in this most recent gambit of his, as he almost certainly will, the case against him will be more airtight than ever. I think he is inadvertently proving more and more that he is his own worst enemy.
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Re: Judge Grants Trump’s Special Master Motion

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Today was a good day to be named Trump if your first name was Brandon or Tiffany.
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Re: Judge Grants Trump’s Special Master Motion

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Gunnar wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 12:36 am
I have the feeling that after Trump fails in this most recent gambit of his, as he almost certainly will, the case against him will be more airtight than ever. I think he is inadvertently proving more and more that he is his own worst enemy.
There is the paradox that the more Trump is shown to be a crook and a liar, the more his base will rally around him. He is after all the person who enabled fascism to crawl out from under its rock. No matter how guilty, he still leads the Republican party and may yet be President. It's like Sauron with his ring cut off, his form changed but the evil spirit still remained. The orcs still rallied to his side and he was able to continue his campaign to subdue Middle Earth with appointees like Grima Wormtongue and Kevin McCarthy.
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Re: Judge Grants Trump’s Special Master Motion

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One of the ironies in the 11th Circuit’s opinion is that it cites a controlling case that provides strong authority that showing that Trump has no valid claim to return of any of the property, The Richey case held that whether a judge presented with a Rule 41(g) motion (which Trump said he hasn’t filed yet, but Judge Cannon disagrees) should grant the motion depends on a multi-factor balancing test. The first factor, which cases cited by the government as the most important, is that the search showed callous disregard for the complainant’s rights. Judge Cannon found no such disregard, but also held that the other factors outweighed the first. And that can be okay, because that’s what a multi-factor balancing test is about.

Now, the 11th Circuit is a little tricky because it was carved out of the 5th Circuit, so, up to a specific date, 5th Circuit opinions are binding on the 11th Circuit. In fact Richey is a 5th Circuit case. But there is another 5th Circuit case decided after Richey but before the cutoff, that held that the first factor must be present. And it’s right there in the 11th Circuit’s Stay order. And, arguably, that case requires the entire proceeding to be dismissed.

So how did Judge Cannon miss that? The same way I did. The government never cited it in a brief. It claimed that the first factor was more important, but failed to cite the case that found the first factor to be mandatory.

Judges depend on the parties to cite the controlling case law (and if there is no controlling case law, persuasive cases from other jurisdictions.) They may do additional research if they think it’s needed, but, most of the time, decisions are based on the cases cited by the parties.

Judge Cannon has taken lots of heat because she did some of Trump’s work for him. Well, the 11th Cir. Just did that for the government — pointed out the controlling case, which the government overlooked. Was that because the two Trump judges are in the government’s pocket? Heck no. Judges want to get to what they think is the right answer. And they won’t sacrifice getting to the right answer just because the parties overlooked controlling cases.
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Re: Judge Grants Trump’s Special Master Motion

Post by Gunnar »

Moksha wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 3:32 am
Gunnar wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 12:36 am
I have the feeling that after Trump fails in this most recent gambit of his, as he almost certainly will, the case against him will be more airtight than ever. I think he is inadvertently proving more and more that he is his own worst enemy.
There is the paradox that the more Trump is shown to be a crook and a liar, the more his base will rally around him. He is after all the person who enabled fascism to crawl out from under its rock. No matter how guilty, he still leads the Republican party and may yet be President. It's like Sauron with his ring cut off, his form changed but the evil spirit still remained. The orcs still rallied to his side and he was able to continue his campaign to subdue Middle Earth with appointees like Grima Wormtongue and Kevin McCarthy.
Another irony or paradox, if you will, is the more he is shown to be a crook and a liar, the more he doubles down on the claim that he is merely a victim of a witch hunt and that everyone is against him. Thus committing additional crimes to be accused of may actually appear to him to work in his favor because each additional new accusation will merely be spun by him as additional evidence of the witch hunt.
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Re: Judge Grants Trump’s Special Master Motion

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Moksha wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 3:32 am
Gunnar wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 12:36 am
I have the feeling that after Trump fails in this most recent gambit of his, as he almost certainly will, the case against him will be more airtight than ever. I think he is inadvertently proving more and more that he is his own worst enemy.
There is the paradox that the more Trump is shown to be a crook and a liar, the more his base will rally around him. He is after all the person who enabled fascism to crawl out from under its rock. No matter how guilty, he still leads the Republican party and may yet be President. It's like Sauron with his ring cut off, his form changed but the evil spirit still remained. The orcs still rallied to his side and he was able to continue his campaign to subdue Middle Earth with appointees like Grima Wormtongue and Kevin McCarthy.
Sure, his base will double down to the bitter end. But we are already seeing that base fray more and more at the edges. He can’t afford to lose any votes, but by going full on Q, I think he’s able to bask in the adoration of his cult devotees, at the cost of fewer total supporters.
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Re: Judge Grants Trump’s Special Master Motion

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Judge Cannon has revised her special master order to put it in compliance with the partial stay ordered by the 11th Circuit. https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/ ... ruling.pdf

ETA: And the Special Master has issued his instructions to the parties. The man doesn't let the grass grow under his, or anyone else's, feet. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap ... .106.0.pdf

Not to be outdone, the MyPillow guy played monkey see, monkey do. He sued to get his phone back after it was seized pursuant to a search warrant. Unlike Trump, he asked the court for a Temporary Restraining Order preventing the government from examining data on the phone before he even served the government. The Judge denied the TRO, citing the 11th Cir. Opinion issued yesterday in Trump’s proceeding. https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/ ... ll-tro.pdf

And, yet another judge appointed by Trump.
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Re: Judge Grants Trump’s Special Master Motion

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Res Ipsa wrote:
Thu Sep 22, 2022 5:11 pm
Judge Cannon has revised her special master order to put it in compliance with the partial stay ordered by the 11th Circuit. https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/ ... ruling.pdf

ETA: And the Special Master has issued his instructions to the parties. The man doesn't let the grass grow under his, or anyone else's, feet. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap ... .106.0.pdf

Not to be outdone, the MyPillow guy played monkey see, monkey do. He sued to get his phone back after it was seized pursuant to a search warrant. Unlike Trump, he asked the court for a Temporary Restraining Order preventing the government from examining data on the phone before he even served the government. The Judge denied the TRO, citing the 11th Cir. Opinion issued yesterday in Trump’s proceeding. https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/ ... ll-tro.pdf

And, yet another judge appointed by Trump.
Do you think the MyPillow guy can't afford another phone or that his crap was not backed up?

This is so damn funny.
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