I’d heard one of the arguments against someone in the DOJ going through Trump’s stuff was because they work in the same organization as Brat and therefore it might be a conflict of interest. Then Trump’s lawyer Trusty suggested himself as the special master……
FBI Search and Seizure at Trump's Mar-A-Lago Residence, August 8, 2022, Case Dismissed July 15, 2024
"A Special Master will be tasked with reviewing the seized property “for personal items and documents and potentially privileged material subject to claims of attorney-client and/or executive privilege.”
So you have SOME legal-to- have documents in with all the illegal stuff?
Yeah, it looks like there was all kinds of stuff all boxed up without regard to sensitivity, lack thereof, or ownership of. And the DOJ has already said that they’ve stripped all the classified shit out.
I saw a clip from CNN that said there’s even supposedly medical records in there.
(Emphasis mine.)
The bolded is the dangerous part. Trump has no executive privilege to exert. He’s not the Executive. Biden is, and Biden has already waived executive privilege with respect to these documents. This judge is raising this issue as if Trump has some basis to claim a privilege that isn’t his. That’s going to make this a mess.
DoJ has an unwritten rule that it does not indict within 60 days of a federal election. We are currently 64 days away from that date.
If DoJ had been planning to indict Trump in the next 4 days, Judge Cannon’s ruling has effectively squashed that with her ruling.
Judge Cannon has also directed DoJ to cease using seized materials in any criminal investigation until the Special Master has resolved any question. So if DoJ was planning to plow ahead with the investigation during the 2-month window, it’s now blocked by whatever bullshit delaying tactics arise from the Special Master farce. Additionally it may give Trump’s team more insight into what documents DoJ has, and possibly who informed on Trump. This will give his Keystone Kops legal team more time and information to develop their comically bad strategy and tactics.
Mind, none of these wonderful boons were granted in response to Team Trump’s dumpster fire of legal filings. She helpfully sifted through that mountain of crap, told them what tests ought to be applied and how they would be met, and then went ahead and applied them. She behaved exactly like a sympathetic judge would treat a pro se litigant who submitted incoherent briefs on crayon, so the poor dear would have some chance at a fair trial before being utterly annihiliated on the merits.
But this was not a dipshit pro se litigant, it was a former President of the United States who had means to secure his own counsel.
And this was not any judge either, it was judge appointed by the defendant himself, and a member of the Federalist Society since 2005.
This likely gets kicked to the 11th circuit which is a similar judisprudential clown show. And then to SCOTUS where it’s easy to imagine Alito writing for a 6-3 majority saying “lol Trump can do all of this, it’s fine, he’s still kind of President if you really squint and think about it.”
This situation is exactly what it looks like. The Cannon ruling is a harbinger of what’s to come.
The problem is that you can’t tell the people in that wing of the left anything. You can’t tell them they need an organized public relations strategy and that they have to choose language for maximum effect. Look at the utter waste of time that the Occupy movement turned out to be.
DOJ was never going to indict before the midterms. That would have been a fast timeline for something this complex, and the politicization of an indictment is another factor that would push them into mid-November at the earliest anyway.
Unless it really drags out, I don’t think the delay will be consequential. The mich bigger risk if the claim of executive privilege stands. Kavanaugh has already questioned it, which gives me no confidence that the DOJ will prevail in this.
Don’t you mean “bigly”? 
Yeah, all this does is introduce a delay. It’s been the expected result for a while (as the judge showed her hand) so people knowledgeable about the topic have already talked about it. And people already noted that there would not be an indictment before the election.
I would suggest it’s not to DOJ’s advantage to appeal this, as that just introduces further delays. Unless they think the special master will be a plant, they will just find everything that has already been found.
It’s not like anything would happen to the judge if they win the appeal. And having a special master has the advantage that you have a third party pointing out that there is no deception underfoot. And that’s consistent with why they were jumping through all the relevant hoops in the first place.
When you indict someone this high up, you want all the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed.
And the Trump mob and right wing media will claim there is deception anyway, as they always do. You cannot give these people an inch; they are perpetually acting in bad faith to gum up our legal system.
Correct me if I am wrong -
Executive Privelege with relation to the contents of the documents - but not the ownership of the documents.
Special Master: These documents are covered under executive privilege.
DOJ: So the fuck what - they were still government documents and not returned to the government as they should have been. Regardless of content - they were not his to keep.
If Trump gets to exert executive privilege as a former president, then Obama and Clinton should get to exert their own non-existent executive privileges as former presidents (throw Bush in there, I’m sure he’d agree,too) and decide that they belong back with the government. Problem solved.
Seriously, though, that’s the part that chaps my hide the most. Special master to make sure no personal documents or attorney-client privileged documents are taken? Fine. Knock yourself out. Humoring his ridiculous and unlawful delusions of perpetual privilege? Why? There’s absolutely no basis whatsoever to support it, but even if there somehow was, privilege wouldn’t mean he could break the law requiring the documents be returned to NARA. There’s is no version of reality in which he has any legal right to any documents that are part of the presidential records requirements. Classified, unclassified, ketchup-covered cocktail napkin with handwritten notes, sharpied weather map, whatever. No special master can lawfully claim otherwise.
What would come of this?
I fear this might be the only eventual recourse.
You know what would be funny? For Trump to be so giddy at this possible “win” that on appeals, he forces his lawyers to assert that privilege exists because he is the rightful current President of the United States, and on no other basis.
Like a physical examination that shows his true weight?
I can’t help thinking… Fifty Shades of Orange
Who chooses the special master? Do both sides agree? Or does the judge decide?
That New York Times report was poorly written: “poured over” (later corrected to “pored over”) in the last paragraph — and, much more importantly, they initially omitted “temporarily” (before “blocked”) in the first paragraph.
It’s almost like they were imitating the style of a certain judge (“League of its own”? Really? In a sober, crucial ruling?).
Hopes rise, hopes fall.