Trump’s Reneges on Promised Significant Fourth Amendment Filing
As you no doubt know, Trump filed a document that purports to be a request for a Special Master last night, over a week after discussing privilege issues with DOJ and three days after promising a significant Fourth Amendment filing.
This document is a lot of things:
- A confession to a violation of the Espionage Act
- A confession to making a threat against the Attorney General
- A legal shit show
- Serial proof that a Trump search was conducted like other searches
- Filed in the wrong place at the wrong time
- Probably written in significant part by Kash Patel
- Not backed by sworn declarations to substantiate its “factual claims”
- An invocation not of special master reviews by Trump’s own personal attorneys but instead an invocation of a terrorist lawyer convicted of conspiring with that terrorist.
One thing it is not is a significant Fourth Amendment filing. Trump couldn’t even manage that competently.
I’m going to go update my “known and likely affidavit contents” post with more basis for probable cause with claims from this and the NARA letter to Trump (PDF via NARA) John Solomon released.
emptywheel Trump Espionage coverage
Trump’s Reneges on Promised Significant Fourth Amendment Filing
Next Steps in the Trump Stolen Documents Investigation
Maggie Haberman: Heads It’s Only Obstruction, Tails It’s Not Obstruction
The French President May Be Contained Inside the Roger Stone Clemency
Which of the Many Investigations Trump Has Obstructed Is DOJ Investigating?
The Known and Likely Content of Trump’s Search Warrant
The ABCs (and Provisions e, f, and g) of the Espionage Act
Trump’s Latest Tirade Proves Any Temporary Restraining Order May Come Too Late
How Trump’s Search Worked, with Nifty Graphic
Pat Philbin Knows Why the Bodies Are Buried
Trump’s Timid (Non-Legal) Complaints about Attorney-Client Privilege
18 USC 793e in the Time of Shadow Brokers and Donald Trump
[from Rayne] Other Possible Classified Materials in Trump’s Safe
John Solomon and Kash Patel May Be Implicated in the FBI’s Trump-Related Espionage Act Investigation
[from Peterr] Merrick Garland Preaches to an Overseas Audience
Three Ways Merrick Garland and DOJ Spoke of Trump as if He Might Be Indicted
The Legal and Political Significance of Nuclear Document[s] Trump Is Suspected to Have Stolen
Merrick Garland Calls Trump’s Bluff
[from Rayne] Expected Response is Expected: Trump and Right-Wing DARVO
DOJ’s June Mar-a-Lago Trip Helps Prove 18 USC 793e
The Likely Content of a Trump Search Affidavit
Some Likely Exacerbating Factors that Would Contribute to a Trump Search
FBI Executes a Search Warrant at 1100 S Ocean Blvd, Palm Beach, FL 33480
Too bad for those of us who are not (and will never be) on twitter.
You can read for free on Twitter, you do not have to participate. If you purposefully choose not to, don’t whinge about it.
Actually, i deleted this post during the edit period – I’m surprised it’s still here. I knew all I would get is an ad hominem response and decided I could find the information elsewhere without patronizing twitter.
You may not have heard, Twitter recently imposed severe limits on what can be read by those who choose not to have a Twitter account. I can now read only the most recent few posts on any feed, then get blocked and have to switch to another. There is apparently an exception for lists (I can read as much as I want on Josh Marshall’s Ukraine Military Analysts list), and any link to a thread will show we the whole thread. But for an abundant Tweeter such as EW I either spend my life watching the feed or I miss a lot.
(Note to moderation: It’s been a while since I commented, I honestly don’t remember the handle I used, feel free to edit as you see fit.)
[Welcome back to emptywheel. You’ve published 20 previous comments as “Bruce Stewart”; let me know by reply below if you wish to change to “Bruce S” here forward since it’s more general yet not duplicative of another commenter’s name. /~Rayne]
Rayne, not inclined to change, thanks.
[Got it. Thanks for the reply. /~Rayne]
Bruce, I just went to the bottom of Marcy’s thread to see if anyone had captured it using a thread reader app. Thankfully someone had – it’s here in a single .html file you should be able to open in your browser.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1561817258309156864.html
Many thanks for this, and to others for suggested work-arounds!
The way to work around this is that when the Twitter pop up appears that states something like “See more tweets from emptywheel,” hit the LOG IN button, then when the “Sign In to Twitter” pop up appears, just X out of it. Then you should be able to scroll any user’s timeline for a bit, though occasionally you’ll have to pull the same trick.
Works like a charm. Thanks.
You’re welcome!
When it blocks you, hit either the login or sign-up button. Then cancel out of it — the ‘X’ in upper left. It returns you to an unblocked free-flow Twitter right where you were before being blocked.
I am not sure if it eventually blocks again within that same scrolling session, but I’ve not had that happen. It will block you on a different feed, but just unblock again as described above.
It’s a minor inconvenience only.
I thoroughly enjoyed Marcy’s Twitter yesterday. She was on a roll!
It does block again later in the feed, but the work-around can be repeated. Thanks.
I’ve run into the new Twitter limits myself. When reading on my tablet, however, I can keep scrolling, but the screen is grayed/filtered and therefore harder to read. Plus there’s the big pop up window that you have to read around.
You can read it on Twitter, just click Marcy’s link “My thread on it is here” and start reading.
[Others have pointed out Twitter has implemented some restrictions on how much content can be read without a Twitter account. Here’s a link to the thread captured by a thread reader as a single .html file not in Twitter. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1561817258309156864.html /~Rayne]
I use nitter.ca (nitter.net is slower) in lieu of twitter. Works well as a reader and no ads or pop ups, though thread reader doesn’t work.
And so clearly the Donald is going to try and ward off indictments by announcing his candidacy. At least that would give the flying monkees ammo on Fox.
Me wonders if MG will use this opportunity to explain the potential charges in court filings in response to this lunatic filing. Good one. No small bungle on their part.
In RE to the classification of all these docs, how can the erstwhile president* make any claims against them as — as far as I know — he never had, nor now does have, a security clearance, much less one high enough to read what he’s requesting be ‘returned’ to him?
Although you say this isn’t a significant Fourth Amendment filing, the fact is that the document mentions the Fourth Amendment lots of times. Any fair-minded person should concede that this makes it a tremendous Fourth Amendment filing, probably the best ever. And it mentions a camel.
LOL. But you need a snark emoji.
What privilege does he want a special master to protect? He’s not a lawyer. He’s no longer the executive. If there is a warrant for stolen goods, can you get a special master to sort out what was taken to verify the police only keep stolen stuff?
A special master’s review would cover only A/C privilege, not executive privilege or other matters.
Virtually none of these materials would be covered by A/C privilege, although naming Christina Bobb as a “custodian of records” suggests a desire to make it appear as if they were. Any documents between Trump and WH Counsel, for example, might be covered by executive privilege, but that’s now Biden’s to assert, not Trump’s, and he hasn’t done so.
The request seems designed to be a distraction, throwing more shit at the wall and flooding the zone with it. It helps create the impression that Trump is a victim, which his base eats up like hot dogs and ice cream on the Fourth of July.
Trump asking for a special master is an attempt to create one more in a series of delays to keep the DoJ from reviewing these documents.
It also makes it appear as if Trump is concerned with process and transparency. Nothing could be further from the truth: Trump hates both, except when he can use them as a defense to his wrongdoing.
I’ve been wondering about that threat to the AG thing since I first heard about it. Apart from the lack of judgement involved in sending it in the first place, it also seems to be a bit of a confession that Trump understands that his words will be used by his supporters to justify threats and violent acts against the targets of his diatribes.
If I were the DoJ, my first thought would have been to give him some more rope by following up and asking him what he was able to “offer” to turn down the temperature. Is this totally off-base, or is this something that could be used as evidence in other cases – either of intent, or awareness of the consequences of his words?
I think it would be a mistake for the DoJ to have any such discussions with Trump. It seems uncomfortably close to negotiating with terrorists.
I see that Trump’s lawyers have fouled up their PHV forms, which may indicate something about their competence.
And you are who?
Just an interested bystander, enjoying my popcorn. Does it matter?
I enjoy the privilege of being free to comment under my own name. If you Google it you will find various people including me. I’m not the footballer, the magician, or the crime boss.
True story:
IANAL but used to have a friend who was an interesting shitshow all by himself. He was a race-conscious RWNJ African American who would vent about his (all too real) experiences of discrimination by law enforcement while cultivating a pro-military and pro-LE reputation on social media (one day he is picketing an outdoor policy academy training, next day he’s posting Blue Lives Matter on Twitter, also had a radio show for awhile and frequent guest on local RW talk radio). Hated Trump before the 2016 nomination (“make conservatives look like idiots”) but completely pro-Trump afterwards (he blocked me when I revealed that on his FB once, plus he owes me $300 because who does a RWNJ borrow money from if not his lib friends?). Anyway, he and his wife had same family problems (she’s white, her family is extremely racist, she’s not, she leaned liberal for years but now he and she are all evangelical Christian conservatives, the racist in-laws just drink and barbecue a lot). Her mom talked her into getting a restraining order via local DV advocate who a lot of people at the court thought was a lawyer because she presented that way in the courthouse and in public. He appealed it (in the end, wife had no objection). I helped with his brief (you can tell what I wrote and what he wrote, because is part is where the raving and use of “we” occurs) using court rules and alleging unauthorized practice of law by the DV. State supreme court agreed and remanded, but wife did not pursue further (I hope the DV got in some trouble).
He also tried to file a lawsuit with “We, the XXXX (surname) family” as the plaintiff. It was very long when I saw it, I said no, you can’t use the “XXXX family” (he being the head of said family) as a plaintiff. He argued but never got around to filing it.
This motion reads a lot like the stuff he wrote.
“the clear frontrunner for the 2024 nomination” and since “most Americans” are “distressed” by this search of his home, guess we don’t need elections anymore.
Judge Cannon appears confused as well: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/23/judge-seeks-clarity-about-trumps-move-on-records-seized-from-mar-a-lago-00053378
If this “motion” survives the judge’s request for clarification/revision, could it be consolidated with the case in West Palm Beach, since they both concern the same event? Both cases are in the Southern District of Florida.
After further reading I’ve decided this is a unnecessary (and somewhat dumb) question, so please ignore. Sorry.
Trump would do better hiring Josh Schulte to write his legal submissions than these cranks. Sure Schulte’s got plenty of free time on his hands.