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DoJ response document drops: "...a Special Master is inappropriate" [1]

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Date: 2022-08-30

"Here, the former President has identified no concrete interests supporting his position, but the Executive Branch seeks the seized records for core constitutional functions: to conduct a criminal investigation and to assess the damage caused by potential mistreatment of classified information. The unprecedented appointment of a special master in this case would frustrate those core and time-sensitive government functions."

Special Master is not code for some Mistress X to service a kink. The DoJ even showed their work with a photo of what they found. They argue that their screening has been completed with no need to appoint a Special Master. They argue that Executive Privilege only belongs to the current President. There is no such thing as Executive Privilege for former Presidents. Any attorney-client privilege documents have already been set aside in the “filtering” process. The “taint” squad did their duty and Trump’s hand remains in the cookie jar.

x THOSE. ARE. THE. COVER. SHEETS.



Clear as day. https://t.co/1B7FNJ2JCv — Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) August 31, 2022

x BREAKING: the DoJ filing has dropped! I will read and report shortly. https://t.co/AfUSBjQRKT — Mueller, She Wrote (@MuellerSheWrote) August 31, 2022 Plaintiff’s motion to appoint a special master, enjoin further review of seized materials, and require the return of seized items fails for multiple, independent reasons. As an initial matter, the former President lacks standing to seek judicial relief or oversight as to Presidential records because those records do not belong to him. The Presidential Records Act makes clear that “[t]he United States” has “complete ownership, possession, and control” of them. 44 U.S.C. § 2202. Furthermore, this Court lacks jurisdiction to adjudicate Plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment challenges to the validity of the search warrant and his arguments for returning or suppressing the materials seized. For those reasons and others, Plaintiff has shown no basis for the Court to grant injunctive relief. Plaintiff is not likely to succeed on the merits; he will suffer no injury absent an injunction—let alone an irreparable injury; and the harms to the government and the public would far outweigh any benefit to Plaintiff. Even if the Court had jurisdiction to entertain Plaintiff’s claims, appointment of a special master is unnecessary and would significantly harm important governmental interests, including national security interests. Appointment of a special master is disfavored in a case such as this. In any event, the government’s filter team has already completed its work of segregating any seized materials that are potentially subject to attorney-client privilege, and the government’s investigative team has already reviewed all of the remaining materials, including any that are potentially subject to claims of executive privilege. Appointment of a special master to review materials potentially subject to claims of executive privilege would be particularly inappropriate because binding Supreme Court precedent forecloses Plaintiff’s argument that review of these materials by personnel within the Executive Branch raises any such privilege concerns. Furthermore, appointment of a special master would impede the government’s ongoing criminal investigation and—if the special master were tasked with reviewing classified documents—would impede the Intelligence Community from conducting its ongoing review of the national security risk that improper storage of these highly sensitive materials may have caused and from identifying measures to rectify or mitigate any damage that improper storage caused. Lastly, this case does not involve any of the types of circumstances that have warranted appointment of a special master to review materials potentially subject to attorney-client privilege. (Case 9:22-cv-81294-AMC Document 48 Entered on FLSD Docket 08/30/2022) https://t.co/AfUSBjQRKT

There’s also an amicus brief:

x There it is --> https://t.co/PisR1S5CHH — Katherine Faulders (@KFaulders) August 31, 2022

8 — Additionally, former President Trump argues that the documents at issue belong in his possession because “the PRA accords the President virtually complete control over his records during his term of office.” Armstrong v. Bush, 924 F.2d 282, 290 (D.C. Cir.

1991). While the quote from Armstrong may be accurate, the former President omits that his term of office is expired, so his basis for claiming control over the seized records no longer exists. Nor would his “control” of the records serve as a basis for special master review, particularly where the records were seized pursuant to a duly-issued warrant. [...] Indeed, to allow a former president to use a claim of executive privilege to undermine the work of a current president would undermine the very purpose of executive privilege: to ensure that the Executive Branch can effectively discharge its constitutional powers. U.S. v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 711 (1974) (“[T]o the extent this interest relates to the effective discharge of a President’s powers, it is constitutionally based.”). (p.16) [...] As a result, and even if there were precedent for allowing a former president’s assertion of executive privilege to be evaluated by a court notwithstanding the incumbent’s objection, former President Trump has failed in his two filings before this Court to establish that any interest protected by executive privilege outweighs the Executive Branch’s competing interests in access to these materials. Most notably, the former President has failed to identify a “specific countervailing need for confidentiality tied to the documents at issue, beyond their being presidential communications” and to make “particularized showings in justification of his claims of privilege[.]” Thompson, 20 F. 4th at 38 (quoting Sen. Select Comm. on Pres. Campaign Activities v. Nixon, 498 F.2d 725, 730 (D.C. Cir. 1974)). (p.18) By contrast, the Executive Branch’s countervailing interest in these materials is compelling. The Executive Branch seeks the seized records to pursue a criminal investigation of the improper treatment of government records, including records containing information classified as “Top Secret,” and to conduct a damage assessment and take remedial steps based upon the potential disclosure of those materials. 10 ECF No. 31 ¶ 4; Search Warrant Affidavit ¶¶ 1–2, 47. These are essential, constitutional functions

that the Executive Branch cannot adequately perform without access to the seized records. And, in particular, there is great urgency in conducting a thorough damage assessment of any potential mistreatment of classified materials, which militates against the additional delay that would inevitably result from the appointment of a special master in this matter. To indulge former President Trump’s assertions of executive privilege through the appointment of a special master would simply put off the inevitable, and harm significant national interests in the process by delaying a criminal investigation and intelligence community assessment of damage. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, Amici respectfully submit that the Court should deny former President Trump’s request to appoint a special master in this matter. 10— The Government represented to the Court on August 29, 2022, that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (“ODNI”) is already conducting its classification review of materials recovered pursuant to the search and leading an intelligence community assessment of the potential risk to national security resulting from disclosure of these records. ECF No. 31 ¶ 5. Given the relatively limited volume of records at issue, the exigency of the review, and the unique qualifications necessary for a potential special master, it is impracticable and imprudent to interrupt the ODNI’s work to appoint a special master. (p.19) x The DOJ makes it clear that the FBI agents when at MAL in June were not allowed to look at the boxes in the storage room. In fact, Trump's team "REFUSED" to let them look. — Katie S. Phang (@KatiePhang) August 31, 2022 x Documents seized at Donald Trump’s Florida home don’t belong to him and his request for a third-party expert to review the records is unnecessary, the Department of Justice says in a court filing https://t.co/xN33alPdWq — Bloomberg Politics (@bpolitics) August 31, 2022 x I’m too tired to read the brief tonight. Someone tell me if the docs on the floor in that pic were found that way or laid out for the pic to show a sample of what they found in the boxes. Because either is horrible, but I want to know what kind of nightmare to have tonight. — Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) August 31, 2022

Numero Uno's SocialTruth: "The narcissist needs constant reassurance that they are special."

Andrew Weismann tells Alex Wagner: "No, DOJ will not address the political BS in the blob's request for a Special Master. They will stick to the law and the facts."

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/30/2119851/-Numero-Uno-s-SocialTruth-The-narcissist-needs-constant-reassurance-that-they-are-special

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