A US District Judge Revival of the Special Master of the Florida Home Search for Trump’s Defendant’s Inventory of Seized Materials

Former President Donald Trump got another boost in his bid to challenge the FBI search of his Florida home, with US District Judge Aileen Cannon reshaping the plan put forward by the special master she appointed to review the materials seized at Mar-a-Lago last month.

Trump objected to making the executive privilege distinction Dearie proposed. Cannon adopted other aspects of Dearie’s plan for how the documents should be categorized.

On Thursday, Cannon made clear that Trump will have the chance to bring more litigation, after the special master process is done, while pushing back the timeline for the review by at least a half-month.

Trump went to court to secure an order requiring that a third attorney review the materials seized in the search. The documents marked as classified are able to be used in the criminal probe because they were not included in the review.

Prosecutors had concerns that some of the classified records might still be missing. The Justice Department mentioned that the empty envelopes with classified banners that were seized in the August Mar-a-Lago search needed to be looked at to see if other classified records had not been collected.

Cannon on Thursday rejected part of the special master’s plan that would have forced the former President’s legal team to back up his out-of-court claims that the FBI planted evidence.

“There shall be no separate requirement on Plaintiff at this stage, prior to the review of any of the Seized Materials, to lodge ex ante final objections to the accuracy of Defendant’s Inventory, its descriptions, or its contents,” Cannon wrote, noting that her order appointing a special master contemplated only the government filing a declaration verifying the accuracy of the inventory.

In another boost for Trump, Cannon said Trump’s legal team does not have to provide certain details about his executive privilege claims in the special master review.

The federal judge removed the special master’s proposed requirement that Trump, when asserting a document is covered by executive privilege, specify whether he believed that barred disclosure within the executive branch versus disclosure outside of it.

The former president’s attorneys said his constitutional rights were violated, and that there may have been privileged materials seized. In court he didn’t say anything about what he hoped the special master would look into, other than allusions to privileged and potentially privileged materials.

A High-Dimensional Special Master Cannot Explain the Case for a Supreme Court Judge to Resolve the Archives’ Investigation of the 2021 Capitol Attack

Cannon explained the issues that the parties had encountered in obtaining a vendor to digitize the seized materials.

CNN reported that the Justice Department is still dissatisfied with the search and that the Trump team hasn’t claimed all documents have been turned over.

The National Archives referred the House Oversight Committee to the Department of Justice due to their ongoing investigation regarding whether former President Trump surrendered all presidential records.

The lawyer, Alex Cannon, had become a point of contact for officials with the National Archives, who had tried for months to get Mr. Trump to return presidential records that he failed to turn over upon leaving office. The people said that Mr. Cannon declined to deliver the message because he was not sure if it was true.

The court’s decision steers the court away from the political fray at a time when approval ratings of the 6-3 conservative-leaning court have dipped to new lows and liberals, including President Joe Biden, have attacked the legitimacy of the institution. The order was issued during the hearing of the House select committee’s investigation of the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack.

The Supreme Court turned down an emergency request by Donald Trump to help resolve the dispute over classified documents.

A court-appointed special master expressed frustration on Tuesday with the limited information he’s getting from the Justice Department and from defense lawyers for former President Donald Trump about disputes over documents seized from Mar-a-Lago.

There is no guarantee that the court, already being dragged deep into politics, will perceive this case as bearing such vital constitutional or legal importance that failing to take it up would be a dereliction of duty.

Trump needs to prove that he has suffered irreparable harm in order for the justices to grant him emergency relief.

He also argued to the court that he shouldn’t have to reveal inner workings about his 2020 presidential campaign, “including his political beliefs, strategy, and fundraising. President Trump did not check his constitutional rights at the Oval Office door. The Committee’s Subpoena is invalid because it violates his First Amendment rights.

Trump has long appeared to believe that judges he appointed owe him loyalty. The Supreme Court has nine justices, and he nominated three of them.

He has responded badly to his losses before the top bench. In December 2020, for instance, he tweeted that the court had let him down and displayed neither wisdom nor courage in dismissing a challenge to the election.

Getting the word out about the Donald Trump case before the Supreme Court: a forensic law firm approach to the case of the Mar-A-Lago

It keeps him in the news and fuels a sense among his supporters that he is being treated unfairly. As in this case, Trump often substitutes a political or public relations strategy for a strong legal one. It would be no surprise to see Trump raising money off of his request.

His latest move is also consistent with his habit of using every possible avenue in the legal system to slow a case or fog it up. Steve said that the application to the court partly came across as an attempt by his team to appease a litigious client.

Good lawyers who are stuck appease bad clients by narrow, technical and nonfrivolous arguments. It’s a way of filing something in the Supreme Court without going all the way to crazytown and/or acting unethically,” Vladeck, a University of Texas law professor, wrote on Twitter.

Justice Department officials and representatives of Mr. Trump have held a number of discussions in recent weeks. The advice of one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Christopher M. Kise, persuaded him to hire a forensic firm.

And the application opened with a highly political argument – claiming that the “unprecedented circumstances” of the case represented an “investigation of the Forty-Fifth President of the United States by the administration of his political rival and successor” – that took large liberties with the facts of the Mar-a-Lago case.

Dean told CNN that he did not see much of a crisis during the time of the Watergate scandal.

It is likely that the Supreme Court wouldn’t want to get into the sort of arguments they would be used to.

Comments on ‘Understanding the Classification of Presidential Documents’ by Bobb Kise, the National Security Division and the Department of Justice’

The Department of Justice has advised Trump’s attorneys that his obligation to return the documents marked as classified continues, and that a top lawyer in the national security division has communicated this to him.

Two documents with classified markings were found when Trump’s legal team searched Trump Tower in New York, the Bedminster golf club, an office location in Florida, and a storage unit in Florida. The FBI received those documents. During the search of the Trump properties, no other documents with classified markings were found.

The FBI is unable to take investigative steps because the judge ordered them not to, and prosecutors have told an appeals court that.

The department added that the injunction “would prohibit the government from using any aspect of the seized records’ contents to support the use of compulsory process to locate any additional records.”

Other lawyers in Mr. Trumps circle disagreed with Mr. Kise’s approach to dealing with the Justice Department. They talked Mr. Trump out of the idea and have encouraged him to maintain an aggressive stance toward the authorities, according to a person familiar with the matter.

After a search of Trump Tower, Bedminster and an office location in Florida, the team of two found two documents that had been shipped to the United States after he left the White House.

Bobb spoke with investigators in connection with the Mar-a-Lago probe. There is an ongoing Justice Department investigation into possible mishandling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and potential obstruction of justice.

The sworn statement that Bobb submitted to the Justice Department included a caveat that she was making the certification “based upon the information that has been provided to me.”

Are Donald Trump and his Ex-Admissible aides Oz? CNN’s John King: The case against Trump in the subpoena

CNN’s Brown had reported late on Wednesday that a Trump employee had told the FBI about being directed by the ex-President to move boxes out of a basement storage room at his Florida club after Trump’s legal team received a subpoena for any classified documents. The FBI also has surveillance footage showing a staffer moving the boxes.

The attorneys for Donald Trump argued that the Subpoena is unwarranted because other sources of the requested information include more than a thousand witnesses and one million documents.

“We had a professional search team go through all possible locations that reasonably could have documents,” Parlatore said. We went through a lot of locations that weren’t possible to have them. The DOJ asked us to, so we did it anyway.

A report that the committee has is expected to be published and could lead to the Justice Department pursuing charges against President Trump or his former aides for their role in the attack on the Capitol.

Given the ex-President’s history of obstructing efforts to examine his tumultuous presidency, it would be a surprise if he does not fight the subpoena, although there might be part of him that would relish a primetime spot in a live hearing.

CNN’s John King said that they were trying to make the case that Trump is Oz. “He presents himself as all powerful, but when you look, it’s actually a little guy behind a curtain trying to pull a machine.”

Contempt. The full House, which is controlled by Democrats until at least January, could vote to hold him in contempt of Congress, something it’s done with several other uncooperative witnesses.

There is a prosecution. If found guilty, as Bannon was, Trump could theoretically face a minimum of 30 days in jail. Bannon will be sentenced in late October for not complying with the House subpoena.

Fifth Amendment, the New York District Court, and the Ruling of the Donald J. Burr, a Critic of the President, in an Attorney General’s Office

George is a critic of the president and predicted during his CNN appearance that he won’t win the election. “This is about laying a marker. This is about triggering a response (from Trump).”

The Supreme Court made it clear where it stands on the issue when it ignored Trump’s attempt to block the National Archives from sharing information with the committee.

Liz Cheney of Wyoming is a member of the January 6 committee that felt it had enough info to make a referral to the DOJ for prosecutions stemming from their work. More than 30 people have invoked the Fifth Amendment to protect themselves from self-incrimination regarding their dealings with the former President.

Gerald Ford testified in 1974 before a House subcommittee about his pardon of Richard Nixon.

President Thomas Jefferson declined to appear at former Vice President Aaron Burr’s trial for treason even though he was subpoenaed by then-Chief Justice John Marshall. Jefferson provided some documents. Burr was eventually acquitted.

The Supreme Court gave investigators in New York access to the financial documents. A criminal trial will take place this month for Trump’s company.

The judge forced him to comply with subpoenas from New York’s attorney general as part of a civil inquiry. He invoked the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination during that deposition.

On Thursday morning, New York Attorney General Letitia James asked a state court to block the Trump Organization from moving assets and continuing to perpetrate what she has alleged in a civil lawsuit is a decades-long fraud.

The Mueller Subpoena: Why Donald Trump is Sliding Into an Unforgiving Legal Hole in the Campaign for his 2020 Presidential Outburst

That means the January 6 committee must plan to wrap up all of its work by January 3, 2023, when the next Congress begins and the January 6 committee may be no more.

A letter from the committee that accompanied the subpoena summarized what the panel presented in a series of hearings to demonstrate why it believes Trump “personally orchestrated and oversaw” the efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

It also asked Trump to turn over all records of phone calls, text messages or communications with any members of Congress from December 18, 2020, to January 6, 2021; all of his communications on January 6 specifically, and any communications or efforts to contact other witnesses in the committee’s investigation.

The developments that could hurt Donald Trump were not on stage. They reflect the extraordinary legal thicket surrounding the ex-President, who has not been charged with a crime, and the distance still left to run for efforts to account for his riotous exit from power and a presidency that constantly tested the rule of law.

While Trump has frequently defied gathering investigative storms, and ever since launching his presidential campaign in 2015 has repeatedly confounded predictions of his imminent demise, there’s a sense that he’s sliding into an ever-deeper legal hole.

The court turned down his emergency request to intervene, which could have delayed the case, without explaining why. No dissents were reported, one of them being from the conservatives who often feel Trump owes them a debt of loyalty.

For all the political drama that surrounds the continuing revelations over one of the darkest days in modern American history on January 6, it’s the showdown over classified documents that appears to represent the ex-President’s most clear cut and immediate threat of true criminal exposure.

The former President wants to know why the panel waited so long to call him. But his obstruction of the investigation and attempts to prevent former aides from testifying means he is on thin ice in criticizing its conduct. It’s normal for investigators to build a case before reaching the target of the probe.

Marc Short, a former chief of staff for then-Vice President Mike Pence, was spotted leaving a courthouse in Washington, DC. According to a person familiar with the matter, Short had been summoned to testify for the second time. Another Trump adviser, former national security aide Kash Patel, was also seen walking into an area where the grand jury meets. He wouldn’t tell the reporters what he was doing.

Even though the details of what transpired at Mar-a-Lago raised some troubling questions, they did not necessarily amount to obstruction of justice according to David Schoen, the defense lawyer in Trump’s second impeachment.

But he added: “If President Trump or someone acting on behalf knew … that they didn’t have the right to have these documents in their possession, the documents belonged to the government or the American people, et cetera, and knowingly disobeyed the subpoena, knowingly hid the documents or kept the documents from being found, then that could theoretically constitute obstruction.”

Trump denied wrongdoing and branded the probe a stunt. The former President is being investigated by the Department of Justice over the Capitol insurrection. The House select committee cannot bring criminal charges, although it is discussing whether to send criminal referrals to the Justice Department. Trump has also blasted the DOJ’s investigation into classified documents unearthed during the FBI search of his residence at Mar-a-Lago as a witch hunt and political persecution.

According to multiple sources, both the Mar-a-Lago investigation and the January 6 investigation around Trump are aiming to gather more information and bring witnesses into a federal grand jury in the coming weeks. Prosecutors sent out several new subpoenas related to both investigations in recent days, with quick return dates as early as this week.

Budowich mocks the Subpoena: The Unselected Committee of the High Court of a Critique of the Ex-President

As always, the severity of a crisis is assessed by the vehemence of Trump’s responses and he came out fighting on Thursday.

First Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich mocked the unanimous 9-0 vote in the select committee to subpoena the former President for documents and testimony.

“Pres Trump will not be intimidate(d) by their meritless rhetoric or un-American actions. Trump-endorsed candidates will win the Midterms and restore America First leadership and solutions.

The post that failed to answer the accusations against the former President was written to stir up a political reaction from his supporters.

The Unselect Committee should have asked me to testify a long time ago. Why did they wait until the very end, the final moments of their last meeting? The committee is a BUST. Trump wrote.

The lawyers who are working on addressing the committee’s subpoena are working on the criminal investigation of the president with attorneys in the Justice Department.

The release of the lawsuit that was filed by Trump said that the separation of powers does not allow Congress to force a President to testify.

Given the small chance of Trump complying with a congressional subpoena, observers will see the dramatic vote to target the ex-president as yet another theatrical flourish in a set of slickly produced hearings that often resembled a television courtroom drama.

The investigation was not just about what happened on January 6, but about future as well, said Rep. Liz Cheney.

“With every effort to excuse or justify the conduct of the former President, we chip away at the foundation of our Republic,” said the Wyoming lawmaker, who won’t be returning to Congress after losing her primary this summer to a Trump-backed challenger.

Where is the beef? I need some beef, judge Raymond Dearie, the attorney general of the Eastern District of New York, who was appointed by Donald Trump in the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals

Calling the records “extraordinarily sensitive,” the Justice Department had asked the court to stay out of the dispute while legal challenges play out.

The DOJ argues in its filing that Cannon caused a serious and unwarranted intrusion on the authority of the Executive Branch to control the use and distribution of highly sensitive government records by abusing her discretion.

A panel of judges on the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals, however, acting upon a request from the Justice Department, agreed to freeze portions of those orders while the legal dispute plays out.

Trump told the Supreme Court last week that the Eleventh Circuit didn’t have jurisdiction to review the stay that was imposed on the seized materials.

The Special Master in the Mar-a-Lago case, Judge Raymond Dearie, had to stop reviewing the seized documents because of the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals.

The filing says that the public’s confidence in the system erodes when there is a limit on the comprehensive and transparent review of seized materials.

US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said Cannon, who was appointed by Trump, “fundamentally erred” in appointing a special master in the first place and noted the Justice Department is appealing that decision in the lower courts.

Where is the beef? I need some beef,” Judge Raymond Dearie, acting as the third-party reviewer of the seized documents, said during a half-hour conference call with the attorneys from both sides.

Dearie told the parties that he also hopes to hear from both sides on how he should treat documents that Trump wants to call personal, and thus potentially protect them from investigators, and also claim are covered by executive privilege, which could make them government documents.

Dearie asked why the two sides can’t determine among themselves if the letter was sent, which would be a crucial fact to help the judge decide if it should be kept confidential.

When Dearie of the Eastern District of New York has only one month to deal with all of the claims, he doesn’t want to deal with nonsense objections.

There is a certain incongruity to it, unless I am right and I have been wrong before. Maybe that will be addressed in a submission, Dearie said.

The Judges’ Benchmark: Donald Trump’s Search for a Special Master at Mar-a-Lago, Fla., Gets Closer

The parties have not yet indicated how many of the nearly 22,000 pages seized at Mar-a-Lago Trump are in dispute and will require the special master to make a call.

Sources tell CNN that the legal team for Donald Trump is considering allowing federal agents to return to the former President’s Florida residence to carry out a supervised search in response to the demands of the Justice Department.

Even as Trump continues to argue that the records he took with him when he was president are his personal property, his team is making an argument in court that he first heard from a conservative activist.

“The general belief in Trump World is that this is much ado about nothing and the sooner we get past it the better,” said a person close to Trump, adding that the former President has told allies he “wants to move on.”

People familiar with the situation say that some of the battle to secure their return has been happening behind the scenes in a court hearing that is under seal. One potential resolution could involve the Justice Department asking a judge to issue an order compelling the Trump team to work with DOJ to arrange for another search.

Trump has favored a more pugilistic approach, even accusing federal investigators at one point of planting evidence during their search at Mar-a-Lago – a claim he has never substantiated in court.

Sources familiar with his situation say that Corcoran has insisted to his colleagues that he doesn’t face legal risk and doesn’t have a lawyer.

A third Donald Trump lawyer, Boris Pollshteyn, had his phone seized by the FBI last month and was subpoenaed by a grand jury to testify about efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The letter, filed on Thursday by the Justice Department, describes disputes over ownership and executive privilege claims involving a batch of 15 records that have undergone early review. There is roughly 13,700 documents and other materials taken from Mr. Trump’s club and residence in the court-authorised search in August.

There are a few packages submitted to him when he was president that were in support of pardon-seekers, as well as two documents relating to his administration’s immigration policies.

The committee also said it “received correspondence from the former President and his counsel in connection with the Select Committee’s subpoena” but did not provide additional information.

Trump’s lawyers say they’ve communicated with the House over the past week and a half as the subpoena deadlines neared, offering to consider answering written questions while expressing “concerns and objections” about the bulk of the document requests.

The committee will evaluate the next steps in the litigation in the days ahead, according to the statement from the two chairmen.

All communications relating or referring to members of the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, or any other group from September 1, 2020, to the present were included in the broad document request. The panel has a request for 19 different categories.

The lawsuit against the Trump-Trump Select Committee against a subpoena for the investigation into the January 6, 2021, midterm election

Former President Donald Trump has sued the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, as a way to challenge its subpoena for documents and his testimony, according to filings in a federal court in Florida.

The legitimacy of the committee is being challenged by Trump, who wants to be free of testimony about the time he was president.

The privileges of the executive branch would be violated if TRUMP met the House demands, including revealing conversations he had with Justice Department officials and members of Congress.

The lawsuit also raises some protections around the presidency that have never fully been tested by appeals courts, and Trump brought the lawsuit in a court that, unlike DC, hasn’t weighed in on his standoffs with House Democrats over the past several years.

“Given the timing and nature of your letter – without any acknowledgment that Mr. Trump will ultimately comply with the subpoena – your approach on his behalf appears to be a delay tactic,” Thompson wrote.

On November 9 the Trump team told the House that he wouldn’t testify and that no records related to personal communications would be turned over.

The committee has previously held witnesses in contempt of Congress for defying the panel’s subpoenas but has little ability to force compliance with the subpoena quickly through the courts.

Thompson and Cheney said in their statement on Monday, “[Trump’s] attorneys have made no attempt to negotiate an appearance of any sort, and his lawsuit parades out many of the same arguments that courts have rejected repeatedly over the last year.”

Thompson and Cheney wrote that Donald Trump is hiding from the Select Committee and refusing to do what other witnesses have done. Donald Trump wanted to overturn the presidential election and stop the transfer of power. He’s obligated to give answers to the people.

A team of lawyers hired by President Donald Trump’s team found two classified documents in a Florida storage unit, according to a person familiar with the situation.

A federal judge has asked former President Donald Trump’s attorneys to turn over the names of the individuals hired to search four properties for documents late last year, a source familiar with the order told CNN.

CNN has learned that the judge declined to hold Trump in contempt of court, and that there was no hearing on Friday.

The sources also told CNN that Chief Judge Beryl Howell instead pressed the Trump team and the Justice Department to work together to find a mutually agreeable resolution.

The search of his Mar-a-Lago Resort in August led the DOJ to seek contempt of court proceedings against Trump and his office.

When asked for comment, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung sent the same statement issued on Thursday, saying the former president and his lawyers “will continue to be transparent and cooperative, even in the face of the highly weaponized and corrupt witch-hunt from the Department of Justice.”

A coalition of media organizations that included CNN had asked Howell to allow public access to Friday’s hearing, but the judge did not grant the request.

“This afternoon, the Court held a hearing regarding an ongoing and sealed grand jury matter. This matter remains under seal, pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e) and Local Criminal Rule 6.1,” the statement said.

Trump’s lawyers had been dreading the prospect of a special counsel, concerned it could drag out the investigation they have fought continuously in court. The matter has attracted the attention of the president, who compared it to Robert Mueller, who oversaw the Russia investigation.

According to recent developments, including the former president’s announcement that he is a candidate for president in the next election, and the sitting president’s stated intention to be a candidate, I have concluded that appointing a special counsel is in the public interest.

Jack Smith, the former chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague, where he investigated war crimes in Kosovo, will oversee the investigations.

The 11th Circuit Appeals Court Judge Robertson-Walker probes of the January 6 September 11 attack on the U.S. Capitol

Speaking at the America First gala at Mar-a-Lago on Friday night, the former president called the special counsel appointment an “appalling announcement” and a “horrendous abuse of power.”

The former president stated on Friday that he believed federal investigations were over until Garland’s announcement. He repeatedly told the crowd at Mar-a-Lago that the investigations were politics and would not be a fair investigation.

“The law is clear,” the appeals court wrote. “We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant. A rule can’t allow only former presidents to do it.

The 11th Circuit said that either approach would be a “radical reordering of our caselaw limiting the federal courts’ involvement in criminal investigations” and that “both would violate bedrock separation-of-powers limitations.”

Prosecutors are examining whether there was obstruction of justice, criminal handling of government records and violations of the Espionage Act, which prohibits unauthorized storage of national defense information.

“The referral itself is pretty much worthless,” Trump lawyer Tim Parlatore said on “CNN Newsroom.” The Department of Justice does not have to follow it. There’s been an existing investigation that we have been dealing with for quite some time. It just politicizes the process, that’s what this does.

The criminal referrals from the select committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol were received by the Justice Department this week. Committee members said they believed Trump was guilty of at least four federal crimes, including conspiracy and obstructing a joint session of Congress.

The January 6 committee found evidence that showed that Trump tried to overturn the results, despite warnings that he was breaking the law. Trump hoped that Vice President Mike Pence would interfere with the electoral vote count when the joint session took place on January 6, 2021.

“It’s political noise, but it doesn’t have any effect, as of right now, on our defense,” said Parlatore, who represents Trump in the Justice Department probes into January 6 and the potential mishandling of government documents at Mar-a-Lago.

According to CNN, Parlatore said that everything that was found at Mar-a-Lago has been turned over.