I remember leaving for a week long summer camp the day after the chase and I was worried the whole thing would have blown over by the time I got back.
FBI Search and Seizure at Trump's Mar-A-Lago Residence, August 8, 2022, Case Dismissed July 15, 2024
Trump team response has just hit the docket. I haven’t read it at all yet.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22442035-trump-resp-to-mf-partial-stay
I don’t think their response is going to impress the court.
This investigation of the 45th President of the United States is both unprecedented and misguided. In what at its core is a document storage dispute that has spiraled out of control, the Government wrongfully seeks to criminalize the possession by the 45th President of his own Presidential and personal records.
This propaganda is undoubtedly effective as a PR move, to give talking points for Trump’s defenders. But it seems like it would backfire big time in court. It gives the impression that they’re not taking this seriously.
So far, it looks better than the previous filings. The new guy is better than what Trump had before.
That said, their contention that the government has to “prove” that a document is classified - beyond showing that it says “classified” on it - is silly.
Basically, they can’t show anything to demonstrate that Trump did declassify the documents, so they’re trying to force the government to prove the negative.
Once again, for the obstruction charge, the document only needs to marked classified. It doesn’t matter one way or the other if the document is actually classified.
Its a good thing that all of the prior documents/requests/etc clearly said ‘marked as classified’ .
There is also a statement in that response that since ‘Trump made notes on the doc, makes it Trumps’
(Paraphrased) - I find that quite hilarious.
Re: special masters - you don’t have to be an atty, only watch TV/read crime novels. 
For example, In Bosch (book - Angel’s Flight, and show), when the lawyer was shot on that goofy little funicular railway, they appointed a special master to review the lawyer’s files before the cops could search them.
Could be a recipe for soup. Does not matter. Classified is Classified. The Soup Nazi would agree.
My immediate thought was this:
Nah, it’ll be fine. This is just an argument to Cannon to deny the motion to stay the part of the previous order that prohibits DOJ from using the documents with Classification markings for investigative purposes. Right?
The “how do we know it’s classified just because it’s marked TOP SECRET // SCI” argument is more than enough for her. And the “unprecedented” and “document storage dispute” echos many of the phrases she herself used in her order.
Whether it will work for the Circuit Court is a better question…
ETA: I think I have the timeline wrong… maybe Cannon already rejected the request for a partial stay and this actually is the response to the 11th circuit. Sorry!
Having had a clearance in the past, I can say that is absolutely not how it works. Once a document is marked classified, even if it’s a cat .gif you printed out and marked with the wrong classification stamp, it’s classified. The burden is on you to prove it isn’t classified.
I thought this was an argument to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, because today is their deadline to reply before the court puts a stay on Trump’s delaying tactics (to allow the investigation to continue). Cannon has nothing to do with this.
The CIA (Cat Intelligence Agency) has a depot filled with military-grade cat memes and cat videos. We can’t let this weaponized cuteness fall into enemy hands!
If ever there was a need for government transparency this is it. The people have a right to know!
Be careful! They have weapons of meows destruction!
Yes, the DOJ has been very careful, especially in its latest request, to refer specifically to “documents bearing classification markings.” But, as you point out, the criminal offense they’re investigating does not require the information to be classified. Note, however, that neither does it require the information to be marked classified. All it requires is that the suspect mishandle national defense information.
IANAL, but the DOJ’s argument here seems to be “These documents marked classified very likely contain NDI and we would like to use them to continue our investigation.” And Trump’s response seems to be, “That’s awfully presumptuous of you.” Whether or not the documents are actually classified, specifically whether or not Trump declassified them, must have some relevance, since both sides are addressing it in their arguments.
Now… Trump’s arguments here are laughable. But… you can consider a scenario where physical documents could contain information that contains classification markings but is no longer a security concern. Maybe it’s a document that was leaked by the NYT and even though it’s still technically classified it’s public information. Maybe it was declassified and not properly marked as such.
What makes Trumps arguments laughable is that he’s insinuating that he may have declassified everything and then putting the burden of proof on the DOJ to essentially prove that he didn’t.
I do wonder though, if the criminal offense only requires that the documents contain NDI, and the DOJ by this point knows what the documents contain because they’ve had them for weeks, then why don’t they just refer to them as “documents containing NDI.” That effectively sidesteps not only whether they were classified but also whether they’re marked as such.
Very Special Master reviewing documents with counsel.
I’m greatly enjoying the fact that Trump must be fuming at the incredible unfairness of the justice system, whereby you can try to bullshit the courts but you cannot outright lie to them. This deprives Trump and his minions of his #1 most effective tool …
From CNN:
The new filing comes after Trump’s lawyers on Monday evening told the senior judge serving as special master that they did not want to disclose at this point, for the special master review, specific information about whether the documents were declassified.
Trump has claimed in media interviews that he declassified the documents from his White House he took back to his Florida home, but his attorneys have stopped well short of making such an assertion in court.
Goofy??? Harrumph…
Ewww… I wonder if trump licked all the documents.