by MARGOT CLEVELAND
The race is on between the Biden administration, which on Friday filed a motion to stay the special master’s review of some 100 documents the FBI seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, and the special master, who could begin reviewing those documents as early as this week.
Over the weekend, the 11th Circuit accelerated the contest by ordering Trump’s legal team to respond to the DOJ’s motion to stay by Tuesday at noon, even as the special master already called a conference with the lawyers for that same afternoon to discuss the review process. For the sake of the country, the 11th Circuit should deny the DOJ’s request and allow the special master to proceed with the review.
Much has happened since Thursday when federal Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, selected Judge Raymond J. Dearie to serve as special master to review the material seized by the FBI during an August 8, 2022, raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.
Dearie, a Reagan appointee and semi-retired senior judge for the Eastern District of New York, had previously served for seven years on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or “FISA” court. In fact, in that position, Dearie signed the FISA court’s fourth faulty Carter Page surveillance order. Nonetheless, Trump recommended Dearie to serve as a special master to review the seized materials. With the government not objecting to his selection, Cannon made his appointment official on Thursday.
Cannon’s order appointing Dearie also delineated his responsibilities as special master and the general process. Among other things, Cannon directed Dearie to “review all of the materials” seized during the Mar-a-Lago raid and to “verify that the property listed in the ‘Detailed Property Inventory’” “represents the full and accurate extent of the property seized.” The order further directed the special master to review the documents for privilege, including for formal assertions of “executive privilege.”
Most helpful for Trump and the half of Americans who no longer trust the DOJ and FBI, was Cannon’s order to the Biden administration that it make any documents with classification markings available “for inspection by Plaintiff’s counsel, with controlled access conditions (including necessary clearance requirements) and under the supervision of the Special Master.” The government must also provide copies of all other documents to Trump’s lawyers, and for nondocumentary items, the DOJ must make them available to Trump’s attorneys for inspection.
As I explained last week, “Judge Cannon further directed Trump’s lawyers to provide their position on which of four categories each item seized falls into: 1) personal items and documents not claimed to be privileged; 2) personal documents claimed to be privileged; 3) presidential records claimed to be privileged; and 4) presidential records not claimed to be privileged.” If the DOJ and Trump disagree on the appropriate classification, the special master will make recommendations to Judge Cannon, who will then decide the issue.
Cannon’s order also directed the special master and the parties to prioritize for review the 100-some documents the government maintains were marked classified, with the entirety of the review then to be completed by November 30, 2022.
The same day she named Dearie special master and specified his responsibilities, Cannon denied the Biden administration’s request that the court “stay” or put on hold the order directing the government to provide the special counsel access to the approximately 100 documents supposedly marked classified, pending the government’s appeal to the 11th Circuit. The DOJ also asked the court to allow the government to use those 100-some documents “for criminal investigative purposes” — something Cannon had ruled the government could not do until the special master completed his review. Cannon rejected that request as well.
In denying the government’s request for a stay, Cannon explained that the DOJ effectively asked her to accept at face value the government’s representations that “all of the approximately 100 documents isolated by the Government (and ‘papers physically attached to them’) are classified government records.” The court was unwilling to accept the government’s representation “without further review by a neutral third party in an expedited and orderly fashion.”
Cannon added that she was “not persuaded that the Government will suffer an irreparable injury without the requested stay.” Here the court noted that while the DOJ framed its request as necessitated by urgent national security needs, the government has not identified any “emergency” or any likely “imminent disclosure of classified information arising from Plaintiff’s allegedly unlawful retention of the seized property.” On the contrary, the only disclosures seen to date, Cannon stressed, were the government’s “leaks to the media.” And, in any event, because she directed the special master to prioritize the review of the approximately 100 documents supposedly marked “classified,” Cannon rejected the claim of irreparable injury.
The day Cannon appointed Dearie as special master, Dearie entered his first order, setting a preliminary conference between the parties for Tuesday, September 20, 2022, at 2:00 p.m., with Trump and the DOJ directed to “submit proposed agenda items for discussion by docketed letter” by close of business on Monday, September 19, 2022.
Friday also saw the Biden administration file a motion to stay in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. That motion requests the appellate court put on hold Cannon’s order that the government provide Dearie access to the 100 documents it maintains bear classification markings and that the government not use those documents in its criminal investigation until the special master completes his review.
The Biden administration’s motion to stay filed with the 11th Circuit was weak, opening with hyperbole that would fail Appellate Advocacy 101.
The district court barred the government from “further review or use of any seized materials for criminal investigative purposes pending a special-master process that will last months,” the DOJ’s brief opened. But while the entire process will last a little over two months, Cannon, to account for the government’s claimed concerns, directed the special master and the parties to address the 100 documents the government maintains were marked classified first. The court’s order also allows for interim reports, meaning that that portion of the review could be done within a week or two.
The Biden administration’s false framing of the delay as “several months” lessens the strength of its argument. The DOJ lawyers also set themselves up for an especially damaging counter by Trump’s legal team given the speed with which the special master is working. And should Trump’s attorneys submit to the special master a detailed “agenda item” on Monday that proposes an immediate review of those documents, the DOJ will be hard pressed to argue that a brief delay will harm national security.
The government’s argument of urgency also proves unconvincing, first because, as noted above, the special master is moving quickly. But second, the DOJ’s argument that “the criminal investigation is itself essential to the government’s effort to identify and mitigate potential national-security risks,” rings hollow.
However, even accepting the Biden administration’s claim that national security demands its criminal investigation continue unabated, that rationale does not support the DOJ’s second request: that the government be allowed to withhold the 100 documents purportedly marked classified from the special master’s review.
In making this argument, the DOJ repeats many of the arguments made to, and rejected by, Judge Cannon, and it does so without addressing the trial court’s reasoning. Most significantly, the Biden administration repeats its argument that all of the rationales for appointing a special master are “categorically inapplicable to the records bearing classification markings.” The DOJ’s brief then asserts: “The markings establish on the face of the documents that they are not Plaintiff’s personal property.”
This argument, however, ignores Cannon’s counter, that she is unwilling to “adopt” the government’s premise that “all of the approximately 100 documents isolated by the Government (and ‘papers physically attached to them’) are classified government records, and that Plaintiff therefore could not possibly have a possessory interest in any of them.”
Here are two distinct possibilities that the review by the special master could establish (or rule out). First, some of those 100 documents may not actually bear classification markings. Second, some (or all) of the 100 documents may bear classification markings but clearly and indisputably are no longer classified.
For instance, Trump’s travel itinerary from his November 2019 Thanksgiving trip to Afghanistan to visit the troops, while highly secret before his surprise journey, no longer constitutes classified information. Alternatively, some (or all) of those 100 documents marked classified could be copies of documents from the Crossfire Hurricane investigation that Trump publicly declassified. If so, those copies are Trump’s personal property. Both these possibilities alone justify review by the special master and neither even reach the question of privilege.
The Biden administration ignores these possibilities, however, arguing in its motion to stay that because it has declared the 100-some documents bear classification markings, no further review by the special master is needed. Half the country finds the DOJ and FBI untrustworthy, though, especially when it comes to Trump.
Let’s talk about alleged bias. Dearie, a Reagan appointee, is suspected of bias by the left because he was appointed by Reagan. However, when presented with evidence (he certainly wasn’t expecting to be blatantly lied to and misled by the FBI) he approved 4 FISA warrants to intrude into Trump’s Presidential campaign. Cannon, though appointed by Trump, made accommodation to the DOJ to have the “classified” documents expedited and reviewed first. Liberal judges don’t do this. Liberal judges are reliably liberal.
Liberal judges will keep the charges against Gen. Flynn even though the DOJ says there was never any actual evidence of a crime. Liberal judges allow the selection of openly biased jurors. Liberal judges block the introduction of exculpatory evidence. Liberal judges openly denounce the defendant, when the defendant is an enemy of the state.
There is no reason to simply assume that the liberal-tainted DOJ and FBI will not lie and is not lying about the documents taken from Mar a Lago. There’s no reason to assume they would not plant documents and evidence. There’s no reason to believe they didn’t take things that they did not disclose. This isn’t conspiracy; this is how the DOJ and FBI by their behavior has conditioned us to think. And, make no mistake, Democrats think exactly the same way, they simply like it.
F**k Merrick Garland and f**k the DOJ. It’s wholly corrupt at this point
WTF WT and where do we go from here?
national-archives-issues-harmful-content-warning-on-constitution-all-other-founding-documents/
Seen on the Federalist website.
Flagged.
https://twitter.com/mrddmia/status/1572677288415866880?t=X8tVlDfgRfCTa3__JGnNSw&s=19
There is NO ONE in that corrupt regime that is not a far leftist, off-the-wall screwball. What a menagerie of America-hating scum.
Trump-nominated judge gives him permission to lie about FBI planting evidence without making the same claim in court:
09/29/22 – Judge bails Trump out of special master plan that would have forced uncomfortable submissions in court
I find it really entertaining to watch you crybaby, sore loser leftists whine, piss and moan when you don’t have a judge on a case that rules according to DNC dictates. This judge is merely following the law and affording due process, as opposed to railroading a political opponent of the Democrats, as most liberal judges do.
Democrats have totally destroyed the credibility of the DOJ and FBI. Trump is not suspecting them of doing anything they haven’t already been caught doing in their ongoing attempt to execute a successful seditious coup against him.
The jack-booted Gestapo/DOJ/FBI should be defunded in January 2023. Then a “Church” style commission empaneled to assess the reformation of the org.