(Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)
After a morning spent implying that Donald Trump could designate highly classified documents as personal and toss them in his suitcase on the way out of the White House, the former president’s lawyers continued their streak of being weird as shit about everything.
In their latest bizarro filing, they objected to the government’s proposed special master candidates, retired federal judges, Thomas B. Griffiths of the DC Circuit, or Barbara Jones of the Southern District of New York, who served in the same capacity in the cases of Trump’s former lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Michael Cohen.
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“Plaintiff believes there are specific reasons why those nominees are not preferred for service as Special Master in this case,” they wrote.
What are those reasons?
“Plaintiff also submits it is more respectful to the candidates from either party to withhold the bases for opposition from a public, and likely to be widely circulated, pleading,” Trump’s lawyers went on obliquely. “Therefore, Plaintiff asks this Court for permission to specifically express our objections to the Government’s nominees only at such time that the Court specifies a desire to obtain and consider that information.”
Ummm, okay.
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In a prior filing, Trump’s counsel proposed either Raymond Dearie, a retired judge from the Eastern District of New York who served on the FISA court, or former Jones Day attorney Paul Huck, Jr., whose wife, US Circuit Judge Barbara Lagoa owes her seat on the Eleventh Circuit to the plaintiff.
Prosecutors’ response was distinctly not weird.
“[P]revious federal judicial experience and engagement in relevant areas of law are important qualifications for this position,” they wrote, justifying their opposition to Huck,” who does not appear to have similar experience.”
The government also noted that Judge Dearie does not appear to be as “retired” as the plaintiffs’ lawyers suggest. Indeed, he’s presiding over a case today in EDNY as a senior active judge.
The parties have suggested wildly varying timelines for the special master review. Trump, who has every interest in dragging this process out to keep the Justice Department investigation on hold as long a possible, suggests a 90-day process in which every piece of evidence seized is evaluated by the master de novo.
Prosecutors would like to wrap this up in a month and only submit items for adjudication by the master if there is disagreement between the parties. Toward that end, they’d like Judge Aileen Cannon to “select the candidate best positioned to timely perform the special master’s assigned responsibilities.”
Meanwhile, the government has promised to docket its appeal immediately if Judge Cannon doesn’t stay the parts of her order which bar the Justice Department from using the classified documents seized in the search — which was conducted pursuant to a warrant! — in its criminal investigation of Trump for obstructing justice, mishandling national defense information, and violating the Espionage Act.
Safe bet shit is gonna stay weird for a good long time.
Trump v. United States [Docket via Court Listener]
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.