Then giving the nod to this one will undermine their case against having any at all.
FBI Search and Seizure at Trump's Mar-A-Lago Residence, August 8, 2022, Case Dismissed July 15, 2024
It’s like sending an ambassador to meet with the guy outside of the 7-11 who claims to be King of Jupiter.
If a former president claims executive privilege, the D.C. Circuit has exclusive jurisdiction. Judge Cannon can make a ruling about such things, but so could I. Neither of us should be given any credence.
No, it won’t.
DOJ is hedging their bets. They’re only appealing the narrow part of Cannon’s ruling with respect to the classified materials, because Trump has no claim of any type of privilege with respect to those. Even the Eleventh Circuit won’t overlook this.
DOJ doesn’t really care if some special master reviews the rest of the stuff for attorney-client privilege. Since most of the documents are covered under the Presidential Records Act, those will come to the National Archives and some special master can knock him or herself out. But they do prefer the sane special master, not the one who is married to someone on the Eleventh Circuit.
For those who are bewildered by the jurisdictional issue, DOJ did raise jurisdiction in their initial response to the judge’s ruling, preserving this as an issue on appeal. If a case is filed in the incorrect jurisdiction, DOJ must still respond to it and raise jurisdiction as a threshold issue – as they have.
Judges interpret the law in the form of orders/rulings. You’re supposed to follow a Judge’s order, or appeal if you disagree. If you just ignore it, especially the DOJ (executive branch), that’s a constitutional crisis situation because the Court doesn’t have any real power to enforce their orders and you’ll open a big can of worms. The DOJ (and future DOJ’s) will just decide on their own what the “clear” law is.
If she’s doing something clearly wrong then it should be easy to overturn on appeal.
I’m not saying the judge’s order should have been ignored-I’m saying that a little bit of time could have been spent going over Trump’s choice of “Special Master” with a fine -tooth comb to see what the fuck he is up to this time.
This judge might be sitting on the bench for the next 30 years. DOJ can’t afford to disrespect her.
Edit: Nevermind, others already said it.
The DOJ has filed a rebuttal to the Trump team’s ridiculous filing. It’s a relatively quick read at 12 pages.
eta:
I hadn’t heard that a slightly less redacted version of the FBI’s affidavit had been released. Gift article from the Washington Post.
Death by a thousand paper cuts filings. 
From the WaPo link above:
…
I previously explained this might be one of the rare times a lawyer could be put in front of a grand jury to testify against his client. If this lawyer has revealed some conversation with his client, the attorney-client privilege might already be gone. Moreover, the assertion of attorney-client privilege can in certain instances be countered with the government’s assertion of the crime-fraud exception (i.e., when the relevant communication actually advances the obstruction at hand). Whether that will happen in this case remains to be seen. Nevertheless, Trump might be upset to learn his attorney isn’t prepared to take the fall.
…The tightly argued brief should remind us how little Trump’s attorneys have offered in the way of a defense and how far afield Cannon strayed in throwing a special master into the mix.
…
Makes me happy.
I like this from the rebuttal:
Because ultimately a record can’t be: marked TOP SECRET, covered by the personal records exception to the PRA, and also covered by executive privilege exceptions (which is ridiculous for a former President anyway).
Schrödinger’s files.
I read that as “flies” ! …something is rotten, so perhaps fitting.
TLDR: Even if he could, which he can’t, he didn’t.
Both good reads. Thank you for sharing them.
It’s going to be interesting to see how far Cannon is willing to embarrass herself on this. She already made herself look partisan with the Special Master ruling.
Well, if she thinks there’s a Supreme Court seat at the end of it… pretty far, I’d guess.
I’ll bet trump promised to appoint her as soon as he’s back in power.
Right after he fires his appointees who turned around and ruled against him.
Apparently the affidavit that’s been released after being slightly less redacted mentions those handwritten notes by trump. Empty Wheel thinks this indicates he was writing ON the classified documents, not just writing handwritten notes that were themselves classified.
I can’t imagine him writing much of anything.
Only with a sharpie.