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