Question for my fellow DU lawyers regarding Cannon's most recent order.

[onenote]

There is considerable outrage being expressed regarding Cannon's order. And I share that outrage with respect to certain portions of that order, particularly those portions that relieve Trump from having to distinguish between claims of executive privilege that would prohibit review of the document within the executive branch and claims of executive privilege that would prohibit dissemination of the document to persons or entities outside the executive branch. Also, Dearie's plan for a "rolling" review approach made complete sense and Cannon's reversal of that approach -- delaying the Special Master's review of disputes until all of the documents have been reviewed and analyzed by Trump -- almost certainly will delay matters.

But no one seems to be talking much about those aspects of Cannon's order and are instead focusing on the reversal of the requirement than Trump attest to, or challenge, the accuracy of the DOJ inventory. But that part of Dearie's order -- which required Trump to address the inventory without first having had an opportunity to review the seized items -- never made sense to me.

So, wearing your lawyer hats, would you attest to, or permit your client to attest to, the accuracy of an inventory before you or your client had an opportunity to view the inventoried materials? To give an example, if you had a client whose premises were searched and he or she believed the seized items included an autographed copy of Michelle Obama's book, and the inventory merely states that the seized items included 31 "books" with no itemization of the titles of those books, would you let your client attest to whether the inventory accurately described the specific items seized? I wouldn't. I would have the client state that they lacked the information needed to attest to the accuracy or completeness of the inventory. And then, when the materials were made available for my client to review, and the book turn out to be one of those items, then, and only then, would I advise my client to attest to the accuracy of the inventory.

Would any of you do anything different?

[Ocelot II]

1. I think Cannon intended to help TFG once again,

but she might have unintentionally done DOJ a favor by removing an appealable issue for TFG if the evidence in question is ever introduced against him in a criminal trial.

[Effete Snob]

2. That part of Dearie's order didn't seem to have much of a point

I don't understand how it was meaningfully related to the assigned task, tbh.

[Phoenix61]

3. He was free to say what was there. The order was a direct result

of his bs about the FBI planting evidence. Either he knows what he has or he doesn’t.

[onenote]

5. Are you an attorney? Would you advise your client to attest to what specific items the government

does or does not have in its possession when all you've been shown is a non-specific inventory?

[Phoenix61]

6. He asked Trump to do the following.

“Dearie's order asked Trump to list any items that were seized, but not listed in the inventory, any items that were not seized and erroneously included on the list, as well as any possible errors in the inventory about the location of seized items.”
Seems pretty clear-cut. The problem for Trump is he doesn’t want to admit to knowing any of those items were there because he had already said they weren’t.

[onenote]

7. The inventory doesn't list specific items.

The issue isn't that he knows what specific items he has or doesn't have. Its that he can't know what the Government has until he gets an itemized inventory of specific items or the opportunity to review the seized documents.

For example, the inventory simply describes Box 10 as containing the following material found in the storage room:
30 Magazines/Newspapers/Press Articles and Other Printed Material dated between 10/2008 and 12/2019
11 US Government Documents with Confidential Classification Markings
21 US Government Documents with Secret Classification Markings
3 Articles of Clothing/Gift Items
1 Book
257 Government Documents/Photographs without Classification Markings

These is no other information given from which one could determine what these items are.

And, consequently, here simply is no way that anyone could list "specific" items were not seized during the search but were listed on the inventory when the inventory itself doesn't list specific items. Similarly, there is no way that that anyone could list "specific" items seized from the premises that are incorrectly described in the inventory when the inventory doesn't list specific items. And there is no way anyone could provide a list and description of any item that was seized but not listed in the Inventory when the Inventory doesn't list specific items.

The order would have made sense if it had required Trump to provide that information AFTER being given access to the seized documents. To give my simple example again, if Trump thinks a specific book was seized, how is he supposed to know whether one of the 31 items identified merely as "Books" on the inventory includes that specific book?

The only answer that any lawyer would have given, or allowed his/her client to give is "Plaintiff is unable to determine whether the Inventory accurately describes the items seized, fails to include any items seized, or includes items not seized until such time as Plaintiff is given an itemized lists specifically describing each and every item represented by the general descriptions on the inventory or an opportunity to review the seized items."

The good news is that once Trump gets access to the documents he will have to challenge the accuracy of the inventory or he will be deemed to have conceded its accuracy. It's just a matter of timing, and the timing in Dearie's order made no sense.

[Phoenix61]

8. You are assuming the original list that was released is the

same one that was recently created. I’m not making that assumption. I’m assuming that the first one was created as they were taking items from Mar-a-Lago while the most recent one was created over a period of time.

[onenote]

9. I'm not assuming anything. I'm looking at the Inventory submitted by DOJ.

You can look at it too.

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/64911367/116/1/trump-v-united-states/

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. But it's not a question of what his lawyers should try; it's what the ****ing judge has decided

I suspect we don't have any judges at a similar level on DU to answer "what judgement would you have given?"