Posted on 09/20/2022 9:01:31 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
In early September, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon approved Trump’s request for a special master to oversee the review of all the evidence seized in the raid and also temporarily blocked parts of the DOJ investigation pending the appointment of the special master. She ultimately appointed Judge Raymond Dearie as the special master to review the details and legality of the raid on Trump’s private Florida estate.
Judge Cannon had ruled against a DOJ request to delay the proceedings and continue to look at the documents separately from the special master.
During the raid, passports belonging to former President Trump were seized. Trump immediately objected publicly to the seizure of his personal property, and the passports were returned in a few days.
Although many items were taken in the raid some particular documents are special attention.
Seized in the raid were documents that reportedly are labeled “classified”.
The implication is that former President Trump has classified material at his home, and that he was in error to have the stated documents.
The former president has repeatedly stated publicly that he himself declassified the documents before leaving the Oval Office and that the stated documents, like other materials in the same room, were slated for his upcoming presidential museum.
Former President Trump has further stated that the Biden FBI has previously visited Mar-a-Lago and the room where the documents were stored to observe the placement of the boxes, and only offered a request that an extra lock be placed on the door to the room.
Trump complied with this offer and had the lock installed.
So there was no secret between Trump and the FBI about what was in the room and Trump was open and and compliant with the government representatives.
Thus far the status of the questioned documents has not been stated in filings to clear up the matter.
The Special Master draft plan sets out a number of requirements, including that Trump’s team provide details about Trump’s claim to have “declassified” documents that were seized during the FBI in the search of Mar-a-Lago.
Former President Donald Trump‘s legal team on Monday night resisted the request set forth by Special Master Judge Raymond Dearie in order to preserve a defense against a “subsequent indictment.”
The request was for the team to elaborate on their assertation that Trump has declassified the documents.
The Hill reports:
In a filing to the court-appointed special master that Tump 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 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,” the team’s filing stated.
“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 former president’s team sees a legal problem with releasing such information too soon, and seeks to release it at the proper legal time.
According to a letter filed by Trump’s legal team, they won’t comply because they say it would weaken their case against a “subsequent indictment”:
[T]he Draft Plan requires that the Plaintiff disclose specific information regarding declassification to the Court and to the Government. We respectfully submit that the time and place for affidavits or declarations would be in connection with a Rule 41 motion that specifically alleges declassification as a component of its argument for return of 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.
In an effort to push forward the release of the information, the Justice Department next filed:
“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 the plaintiff’s putting forward competent evidence,” it added.
New York Times correspondent and Trumpworld pulse-reader Maggie Haberman suggested that Trump’s team was disappointed with the request.
“It’s very possible that Trump’s team – which liked that Dearie is slow-moving and believed he would think just like they do and base decisions on distrust of the FBI – was projecting,” Haberman speculated.
Trump himself is stating no problem with the protocols unfolding, but posted this week, “The 4th Ammendment, and much more, has been totally violated, a grave invasion of privacy.”
+1
5.56mm
Perhaps President Trump is making an ipso facto argument, "by the fact itself?"
I can see an argument that, if President Trump did not box up the papers himself, but that White House residence staffers boxed up his papers on January 20, 2021 away from his presence, then that fact alone says that those papers were declassified, or the White House staff would not have had access to them.
Did it happen that way? Who can say? But the act itself says something.
-PJ
So, you’re saying that the raid was all about Crossfire Hurricane and the National Archive’s concerns are just a distraction?
Bingo!
5.56mm
“If you want to make the argument that the president can declassify documents anytime he wants with just a word, that’s fine. But you still have to introduce some evidence that he actually did do that.”
The special master is simply to give his opinion on what is declassified and what is not. Docs not classified were wrongly seized and go back to Trump. Docs he’s not sure of go on another pile. And what he thinks are still classified go on the third pile. And it’s up to the FBI to prove that the limited scope of documents are classified
Let’s say Trump has the Crossfire Hurricane documents. If he just releases them and says the FBI is corrupt, he gets arrested and tried in DC with DC courts and juries. They will claim he has no right to declassify. Those courts and court of appeals side with the FBI. The Supreme Court hears the case and gets all the political court accusations if they reverse. And in my dream world a lot of people who perpetuated this scam get arrested.
He now is in the FL district. He’s being coy about declassification because he wants the FBI to say in court they’re classified. Now he gets to prove it with a Florida jury, heard by a more sympathetic appeals court and confirmed by the Supreme Court. Now all the documents are released without any doubt of his legitimacy to do so.
That would be multiple Executive Office of the President staff members who provide eyewitness testimonies at trial - assuming it gets that far - verifying that he had declared everything being shipped to Florida was declassified.
As for signing documents, the President is only going to sign the politically important documents. Signing of a bunch of routine declassification notices doesn’t’ fall into that category. Some staff member who has been delegated that power would sign/should have signed them. If it didn’t happen before 12:00 pm on 21 January 2021, it’s a real shame but hardly treason or espionage - on anybody’s part.
Re:31 - if only it were so.
To many, this is an issue about proving a point.
Why not write a memo before he left office stating “I declassify this, this, and this”? And if he indeed has this - why not provide - at the onset?
Just stubborn I guess.
But takes focus off the economy, etc.
What trial? There are no pending charges, and no trial on the docket. And if Trump and/or his lawyers are refusing to provide until a possible future trial any evidence, of any kind, that Trump ever declassified these documents, they're going to lose on that issue in this court. There's just no way around that.
Has? Or had until they were seized? In any case, that should be an easy one because he clearly signed a memo stating they were declassified. So that's evidence that he declassified them as President.
He now is in the FL district. He’s being coy about declassification because he wants the FBI to say in court they’re classified. Now he gets to prove it with a Florida jury....
That's not how it works at all The government already has claimed, in this Florida court, that those documents are classified. And Trump's lawyers are refusing to answer that because they want to wait for the criminal trial, which will happen in D.C.
And there isn't/won't be a jury in Florida anyway. It's not a jury issue.
Sure does take the focus off the economy. But also abortion which is a positive.
People like to claim that nobody is above the law. That is simply not true. The President has the authority to pardon offenses against the United States. His authority is that great because our Founders wanted to prevent just the kind of persecution of political enemies that is taking place.
If Donald Trump decided, while he was President and without telling anyone, that the documents are declassified, is he guilty of committing a federal crime?
If a criminal conviction of Trump were to be reviewed by the Supreme Court, would they rule that Congress can REQUIRE that the President face imprisonment if he doesn’t declassify according to some prescribed process?
Please keep in mind that the Constitution puts no limits on what the President can do with the secrets that he maintains. Nor does the Constitution give Congress the authority to dictate to the President how he must handle secrets.
Of course not. But there’s prima facie evidence that the documents are classified - they contain classified markings.
There’s no evidence nor even a claim in court that they’ve been declassified.
The special master has no choice.
That’s not true. The special master chose to ask Trump for proof regarding declassification. Obviously the special master has reasonable doubts regarding the classification of those documents.
I recall an old tv program in which a defense attorney told the jury that the claimed victim in a murder trial was not dead and that the victim would be entering the courtroom that instant. The jury all looked toward the courtroom door, thus solidifying that the jury had reasonable doubt.
The special master has done the same for Trump.
No. Dearie said the documents are marked as classified. He asked if Trump wanted to say they had been declassified.
Trump’s lawyers said no.
So he now has the DOJ saying “look, these are classified documents. It says so right here.”
And absolutely no one - definitely not Trump - is disputing the DOJ.
He had no choice.
About the special master you said, "He asked if Trump wanted to say they had been declassified."
If there is no possible way that the documents had been declassified, why would he ask such a question? What is the relevance of the special master's question?
Let me put it this way: Let's say that ex-President Donald Trump claimed that he decided -- while he was President -- that he was declassifying documents, but that he told no-one at the time, did not write it down, and that the only evidence of this is what he is now saying as a private citizen.
Under those circumstances, I would be shocked if the courts would find that those documents are declassified. An unexpressed thought is not a Presidential action, and it takes a Presidential action to declassify documents. Whether or not that would then constitute a criminal offense is a different question that would include questions of intent, etc..
To put it another way, the President has the power to give pardons, right? And the Constitution doesn't impose any particular requirements on that. Well, suppose two years after leaving office, Obama had said "you know, I decided while I was President to give Khalid Sheikh Mohammed a pardon, though I didn't write it down or tell anyone. But because I thought it while I was President, he should be considered pardoned." Now who here would buy that?
And just to be perfectly clear, I'm NOT saying that Trump has to jump through any particular statutory hoops. I think what he did with the Crossfire Hurricane documents was sufficient even if nobody carried out those orders. But the "I thought it, and that's enough" explanation is not going to wash with anyone.
What if the law expressly stated that the President CAN decide unilaterally and without informing anyone that a document is declassified. Would Trump be in the clear?
The point I have been trying to make is that Congress has no authority to limit the President regarding this issue. The courts need to defer to the President in these matters. Neither the courts nor Congress is the boss of the President.
It’s theoretically possible they’ve been declassified.
It’s also theoretically possible they were placed there by space aliens.
But Trump isn’t claiming either of those things.
If no one’s saying the documents aren’t classified why in the world would the special master say it?
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