This week in the Special Master review

[onenote]

Today: With respect to the documents that already were reviewed by the DOJ "Filter Team" and provided to Trump as potentially privileged attorney-client communications, Trump is required to provide the government with a log of its designations today. In addition, a government official with sufficient knowledge of the matter is required to submit a declaration or affidavit as to whether the previously submitted Detailed Property Inventory represents the full and accurate extent of the property seized at Mar-a-Lago. Finally, the government also is to provide an electronic spreadsheet that: (1) correlates the Bates numbers of each document with the pertinent item in the Detailed Property Inventory; (2) for each document, specifies whether the Privilege Review Team has designated the document as potentially privileged; and (3) for any such potentially privileged document, identifies the nature of the potential privilege.

Tomorrow: DOJ and Trump's lawyers are to agree on a vendor to host the seized documents in electronic form.

Friday: Electronic copies of the seized documents (minus the classified documents), individually numbered with a unique "Bates" number, are to be turned over to Trump's lawyers.

Trump's lawyers are required to submit a declaration or affidavit that includes (1) a list of any specific items set forth in the Detailed Property Inventory that Trump asserts were not seized from Mar-a-Lago 2) a list of any specific items set forth in the Detailed Property Inventory that Trump asserts were seized from Mar-a-Lago but as to which Trump asserts that the Detailed Property Inventory’s description of contents or location within Mar-a-Lago where the item was found is incorrect; (3) a detailed list and description of any item that Trump asserts was seized from Mar-a-Lago , but is not listed in the Detailed Property Inventory.

[Genki Hikari]

1. I can just about guarantee

That no log existed until the $3 million dude came on board. Senior moment blocks his name for me right now. Anyway, he's the only one who would be competent enough to get that done. Those other jokers, not so much.

I bet $3Mil was in a panic after he came on board and realized it hadn't been done already. He's frantically trying to get it done by the deadline.

This is a good thing. It means he's having to get outside help to review it all, get it catalogued, get the claims sorted out, which means hiring some temp staff to help out, which starts bleeding ye old retainer dry.

Expect $3Mil to demand another few million from Herr McDimwit in the very near future. Those billable hours aren't coming cheap, you know.

[maxsolomon]

4. Christopher M. Kise

formerly the solicitor general of Florida

[Laura PourMeADrink]

6. Lol. I've been wondering if the FG kept up with what was

taken. Wonder how that worked when they came in. Did they sit down with FG side and run through each doc? Like "ok, here's #1, it's a classified doc on nuke sites", here's #2 a newspaper clipping, etc.etc??. They couldn't even say those words unless the FG side had a clearance right?

Yes, would hate to be a FG lawyer here. Think I might have advised that " no one has any idea what's in those boxes, right?".

[Hermit-The-Prog]

2. While it's going to cost us taxpayers, it's going to cost Traitortrump more than he expected.

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[Laura PourMeADrink]

3. First I've heard of a "Bates #". Is that an FBI # assigned

To seized property? Or a # designated to classified info?

Yikes read up on the whole process from a Cornell U doc. It sounded like a de-centralized cluster. I had no idea that docs were originated all over and each agency had to have their own procedure.

[gratuitous]

10. Bates numbering

There is a company called "Bates" that makes a device called a numerator. You have a stack of documents, say medical records in a medical malpractice case, and you want to have a unique identifier for each page of the document for ease of reference. Everyone knows what page or pages you're talking about in a deposition or a court hearing or trial.

The numerator would stamp a four or six digit number (I've seen them go up to 9 digits) on each document, then automatically click up one digit for the next one (you could also set the numerator to stamp multiple times with the same number if you were numbering several sets of documents). Nowadays, however, with .pdf documents so universally used, there is a feature on .pdf document programs that assigns a unique consecutive number to each page of a document. They're still called Bates numbers, but I haven't seen an actual Bates numerator in action for decades.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

12. Wow thanks for sharing all that! Interesting. So guess

FBI didn't scan at MAL or do we know?

[gratuitous]

18. It sounds to me

From the article, it sounds to me like the FBI is going to scan the documents and Bates number each page of the scan, and provide the .pdf file (or files) to Trump's legal team. If I had to guess, I'd guess the FBI will scan the documents on their own scanners. 11,000 pages sounds like a lot, but with high-speed scanners and advances in scan document technology, I could do it in a few hours, and the FBI has until Friday.

[dmr]

25. Thank you for this info

I have never heard of Bates, and was going to try and Google it.

For years I have wondered how you could take numerous files or complex documents and have the ability of relatively easy reference.

Thank you!

[maxsolomon]

5. the 3 lists *'s legal is supposed to provide

they have absolutely none of that information, IMHO. * stuffed it all in boxes and split. it was never inventoried; he's too lazy and doesn't want to pay staff.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

7. But Feds did And gave them copy? Redacted?

[maxsolomon]

9. Right, but he has no way to challenge its accuracy

He never catalogued it, and I doubt Hope Hicks or whoever stuffed it into boxes did either.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

13. No they didn't. First thing I thought of when Dearie ordered

them to attest to contents. How in the hell would they know. We don't know exactly what transpired during FBI doc recovery.

By the way someone corrected me once about who packed the boxes. They said that trump did by himself and refused help. Of course I had to look that up and I did find it but it was from an unnamed source in the White House.

[maxsolomon]

19. Whoa, 1st I'd heard of that story.

Mens Rea. Shows a guilty mind, if you ask me.

But I also can't believe that lazy fuck would pack boxes himself.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

21. Different story..

https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.yahoo.com/amphtml/boxes-classified-found-mar-lago-173055871.html

[Laura PourMeADrink]

22. Ok here's the story about packing boxes in secret at WH

https://www.google.com/amp/s/theweek.com/donald-trump/1010061/trump-reportedly-packed-white-house-boxes-in-secret-took-top-secret-documents%3famp

[Laura PourMeADrink]

23. Let's just *assume* aides who helped pack at first are

Telling the truth. Hey they probably are. They said there were no classified materials. So if second story true and trump secretly packed - could mean he had the secret docs and packed them.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

16. True... No way to challenge the accuracy.

[Justice matters.]

8. Hair Furor is gonna turn a blank sheet

And claim that he had no classified docs since the FBI "planted" them?

[Laura PourMeADrink]

14. Hasn't leaked yet? They were supposed to turn something

In yesterday?

[wiggs]

11. Will tfg team claim some wh docs were planted and demand proof otherwise? all it

might take is tfg SAYING he doesn't remember leaving the WH with them and they MIGHT be planted and his lawyers could phrase suspicion carefully...then doj would have to defend themselves by getting testimony from NARA, FBI, etc. Maybe FBI recorded all activities at MAL carefully enough to show no planting?

TFG always will leave his base with enough suspicion.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

15. Maybe they recorded everything? Ya. But remember he

Wasn't there right? Bet it was a bunch of aides running around with their heads chopped off. Saying we're not supposed to go in there. LOL

[wiggs]

24. I meant to question if the FBI, not tfg, recorded everything carefully to show

what they did...and what they didn't do.

[inthewind21]

26. Yu

bet your ass they did. Hence the photos taken. There's a log of EVERYTHING.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

28. I got it:). Exactly same questions I have

[Goodheart]

17. How does any of this Special Master b.s. justly delay what should have already been an indictment?

He had Classified Documents. He denied having Classified Documents. They weren't his. He concealed them deliberately. He deliberately broke the law.

Why hasn't he been charged except that he's being granted special privileges that we ordinary folks wouldn't get?


This is BEYOND infuriating.

[maxsolomon]

20. That's the gist of it.

Delay delay delay.

Eventually, when DOJ works up the nerve to charge * with something, he'll settle for a slap on the wrist.

[inthewind21]

27. It's

called the US judicial system. There's tons of info on how it works on Google. We don't go straight to indictment in this country.

[Emile]

29. +1. Lock him up!

[onenote]

31. In the real world, these cases take time. No matter who is involved.

For example, Sandy Berger walked out of NARA with classified documents. That he had done so was discovered by NARA in October 2003 and referred to DOJ shortly thereafter. He was never arrested. He was investigated (an investigation that wasn't publicly acknowledged until 2004) and then plead guilty in 2005 to a misdemeanor and sentenced to two years of probation -- he never spent a day in jail, either before or after his guilty plea.

Or, more recently, federal authorities began investigating Benjamin Pierce Bishop with electronic surveillance at least as early as September 2012 and conducted a search of his home in November 2012. That investigation and search established that he was passing classified information to a Chinese citizen and that he also was in possession of classified materials in his home. A criminal complaint was not sworn out against Bishop until March 2013. Initially, he was released to a halfway house pending trial but he violated the terms of his pre-trial release and returned to custody. But he wasn't sentenced, as part of a plea agreement, until March 2014 -- 18 months after the investigation began.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

30. Trump is 'quiet quitting' special master case after making 'terrible blunder': legal expert

The sideling of TFG's $3 million lawyer and the failure to hire a data vendor makes sense if you understand that TFG have given up on the Special Master litigation. The 11th Circuit killed the underlying premise of that case by holding that declassification is a red herring in that TFG would never be entitled to the documents in question even if they were declassified.

TFG is not going to find any attorney who will lie for TFG and make the dumb arguments that TFG has made.

Link to tweet

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-legal-blunder/

Former general counsel of the FBI Andrew Weissmann explained why he thinks Donald Trump is "quiet quitting" his special master case.
Weissmann, alongside former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman was interviewed by MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell.

Special master Raymond Dearie ordered Trump's lawyers to secure a document vendor, but in a Tuesday legal filing, the Department of Justice said none of the five major firms want to work for Trump, so the federal government guaranteed payment.

"I think there is something we can take away from what seems like a small potatoes kind of thing," Weissmann said. "I think what Donald Trump is doing is quiet quitting. He brought this case and he realized he is worse off from having brought this case."

Weissman noted reports attorney Chris Kise left only weeks after being paid $3 million.