Trump Taint Team
I threw up in my mouth a little. 
LOL, I can understand why!! No wonder all the media outlets are using the more palatable term, “filter team.”
Wait. Is that more palatable??
“Trump Filter Team” sounds like a group of people who take his smart phone away when he gets extra cranky.
I’m confused as to why the DOJ having done their review makes the Special Master moot. Isn’t the whole point of the Special master that Trump don’t trust the DOJ to be unbiased in their assessment of what is and isn’t privileged? Is it simply that now that the DOJ has already looked at the documents the damage is done and assigning a special master now won’t cause them to unsee what they have already seen?
This. They can go about building their case even if a special master is appointed and that special master drags their feet. They don’t need the actual docs to do that. They just need to know what they are and they already know that.
But it probably won’t come to that. The DOJ followed a privilege review process that they laid out in the warrant affidavit and a federal magistrate signed off on. Judge Cannon was just informed of this today because she issued her previous order without waiting for a response from DOJ.
Most of the Trump team’s concerns have already been addressed by the process that has already been completed.
Great, the cockles of my heart are officially warmed with schadenfreude! Thanks for the explanation.
There is no harm done by the DOJ seeing executive-privilege material, if it there are any such materials. It’s not top secret, it’s not attorney client privileged. If it is evidence of a crime it has no executive privilege. Otherwise no great harm is done if the DOJ sees executive materials from a former president even if they were privileged in the past. It’s not some kind of special right for presidents to cover up bad acts.
Trump will if he can. If he thinks it will keep the info out of the hands of the DOJ he’ll claim any of the material taken was covered by attorney client privilege. When Trump identifies some material as having attorney client privilege it is no different in the result than selecting such at random. I can’t understand why any judge considers any claim from Trump after his long history of baseless claims to the court.
But he’s not doing that now.
If he gets indicted, his lawyers will try everything within the law, and probably some things that aren’t, to try to get the evidence against him thrown out.
But that’s not what’s happening right now.
I could totally see Trump instructing his lawyers to staple a cover page to every single document declaring it to be “attorney-client privilege” regardless of what it actually is. Or hiding documents in Melania’s underwear drawer so that the only way the FBI could find them is by being perverted. Et cetera. Anything a fifth-grader would do to convince the teacher the dog ate his homework. That’s Trump’s mindset.
What do you think calling for a special master is intended to do? It’s to to try to keep evidence out of the hands of the DOJ, and to delay and muddy the process.
It definitely isn’t, “[D]eclaring materials to have attorney-client privilege at random.”
Some of the material seized is legitimately covered by attorney client privilege. The purpose of the special master, should one be appointed, is to go through all the seized material and find those AC privileged docs and return them to their rightful owner. Team Trump also has the ulterior motive of causing a delay.
Fortunately, DOJ already had a process for finding that AC privileged material that a judge signed off on and that process has already been completed. So there’s probably no need for a special master.
At no point does Trump get to claim this document or that document is privileged and demand its return, special master or not. At least he won’t be able to do that before he gets indicted.
It shouldn’t matter whether Tan the Conman trusts the Department of Justice. That’s lending credence to the so-called theories of those sovereign citizen lunatics. What matters is the law and that’s all that should be addressed.
I can’t tell what you are arguing about, you keep on agreeing with me in the end. I don’t understand why you think there will be a special master though.
Now this part:
Then on what basis is Trump requesting a special master? Ordinarily you don’t ask a judge to special master in order to delay proceedings for no basis. This is a Trump appointed judge though, maybe he did.
I don’t think there will be a special master.
In what way is this unclear?
The independent special master is not the same thing as Trump getting to claim that this document or that document is privileged and demand its return.
Trump, through his lawyers, is asking for a privilege review. He is not, “[D]eclaring materials to have attorney-client privilege at random.”
Trump is entitled to a privilege review and the DOJ agrees that some of the documents they have seized might be privileged. This is something that needs to be done. DOJ had a process in place that a judge signed off on and has already completed a privilege review so appointing a special master is likely unnecessary.
The special master, should one be appointed, does not work for Trump so Trump will not be afforded the opportunity to declare materials as privileged at random.
Special master or not, some of docs are covered by attorney client privilege and will be returned to Trump.
Ok, I see no reason for one. Why do you keep repeating the reasons there won’t be a special master when I ask what basis Trump is using to claim one. And I mean by that what legitimate basis, not just Trump throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. You seem to agree there is no such basis, so I’m confused by your argument.
In theory, if Trump had put in a request immediately and asked for a special master to review what the FBI took to check it for documents that might be subject to attorney-client privilege, there might have been a legitimate reason for it.
But at this point they’ve already gone through the materials, cataloged them, and determined which materials might have a claim to privilege, so it’s too late to do it before the DOJ had a chance to look at it.
I think of it like this… Let’s say that you are in high school and have homework to turn in. You snatch up your homework from the table, not really paying attention, toss it in your backpack, and head to school. You then take it out of your backpack, give it to your teacher, and then sit down.
If you realize quickly that there was something else under that homework, say a profanity-laden song you wrote about different school teachers and administrators, you could run up to the teacher and say you accidentally handed your teacher something personal and confidential with your homework papers. A reasonable teacher might let you go into the pile and grab it and take it.
If you waited a couple of days before asking, well by then your teacher has already found it while going through the papers to grade, and maybe turned it into the office for you to be disciplined.
The cat has already gotten out of the bag, and has been examined, cataloged, and is well-known to the DOJ by this point. You can shove it back in again but the damage is done.
How did you know how I used to do the small amount of homework I ever completed and turned in?
I wonder if Judge Cannon even read (or understood) the original warrant affidavit that the other federal judge signed off on.
The original warrant affidavit wasn’t part of any either of the Trump team filings and she didn’t wait for a response from DOJ, so if she read it, it was something she did on her own.
It should be noted that neither Trump filing included a sworn statement and both were wildly misleading including several straightforwardly false statements.
The 40 page DOJ response today should address some or all of that.