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Chris J. Karr's avatar

I don't have access to McCarthy's full piece, so can't comment on it directly, but I did read the full DoJ filing on my way into the office today. A couple of reactions:

1. Trump was not "bulldozed". He had plenty of time to petition for a special master (could have done so the day the warrant was executed), but chose to wait weeks to do so. Should the DoJ have waited and waited and waited to see what Trump would do before starting the difficult work of determining which intelligence sources might be compromised due to Trump's idiocy? (In the filing, the DoJ mentions that a number of top secret documents were tagged with HCS status, which is reserved for documents that may reveal a human source.)

2. In requesting a special master, the DoJ points to the rules of federal procedure that comment that a special master IS NOT appropriate in these cases, and the cases that Team Trump cite are related to law firms being raided, not resorts or private residences.

3. On the issue of personal property, it's probably worth reminding people that it wasn't Joe Biden or the DoJ who were so haphazard in their document practices that any private property alleged to have been seized was mixed in with the documents that TRUMP DOES NOT OWN.

This is one of those cases where the filing is readily available[1], easily readable, and not a long read. You should take a look at it yourself before launching into wide-ranging proclamations that "the government’s position is that Trump is a clear and present danger to national security, a mastermind who is plotting seditious and treasonous acts against the United States; and also that he’s a bumbling fool, who, despite being a billionaire, left the evidence in desk drawers in his office". The story you'll read in the filing is that the gov't made MULTIPLE attempts to retrieve those sensitive documents for almost two years, and Team Trump either outright lied when they stated that there were no more documents at Mar-a-Lago, and delayed and made excuses when that was readily disproven. Given the pattern of non-cooperation that the DoJ details in the filing, it's amazing that they were as patient as they were when it came to securing and recovering these documents. No grand conspiracy here - just Team Trump caught screwing up (again) and working harder to hide the f-up than just getting it resolved properly in the first place.

[1] https://www.foxnews.com/politics/doj-filing-trump-raid-special-master-request-read-document

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David Thornton's avatar

Two comments:

1. I think Trump’s special master lawsuit might have been treated more favorably if it had been filed in a timely manner.

2, Thinault’s dismissal seems to suggest that the FBI is not tolerant of agents who let political biases affect their work.

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