Former President Donald Trump has been dealt a major blow by the special master in the Mar-a-Lago raid case.
Judge Raymond Dearie, who was picked by Judge Aileen Cannon to be the special master last week, told the former president he must provide evidence of declassification or else he will have to assume the records seized by the FBI are indeed classified.
Trump’s lawyers told the special master they are hesitant to make public the specifics on what Trump may have declassified because that topic might end up being one of their legal defense strategies against a possible future indictment brought by the Justice Department.
“How am I going to verify the classification? … What business is it of the court?” Dearie asked during the Tuesday hearing. The Eastern District of New York judge suggested that the DOJ had given “prima facie evidence” that the records were classified and said that “as far as I’m concerned, that’s the end of it.” He went on to press Trump’s lawyers on why that shouldn’t be the end of it.
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Trump’s lawyers had lamented in a Monday filing that Dearie’s draft plan for his tenure as special master “requires that the Plaintiff disclose specific information regarding declassification to the Court and to the Government.”
Trump’s lawyer Jim Trusty said Tuesday, “We’re not in a position nor should we be in a position at this juncture to fully disclose a substantive defense.” Dearie told Trump’s team, “You can’t have your cake and eat it.”
DOJ lawyer Julie Edelstein argued that the determination on whether records are classified is the “current executive branch’s decision only.”
Trusty brought up the process for getting a security clearance, but Edelstein said Trusty would need to have a “need to know” when it comes to the classified records. Trusty countered that it was “astounding” that the Justice Department would suggest lawyers for the former president wouldn’t have a need to know.
The public line for listening in on the Tuesday afternoon hearing was dominated by dozens or hundreds of people who had called in having their voices combined into a crowd-like noise that made it impossible to hear what the judge and lawyers were discussing.
The court had failed to mute everyone’s phones, and people could be heard playing music or listening to TV in the background. One person was singing “America the Beautiful,” while multiple people kept screaming at everyone to “mute your phones!” The technical problems lasted for more than half an hour, followed by five minutes of silence. When the problems were resolved and the hearing was finally audible, the judge was wrapping the hearing up, and it ended roughly a minute later.
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Trump and his allies have argued that he declassified the records that were at his Florida resort home, but the Justice Department has repeatedly pointed out that those declassification claims have not made it into Trump’s court filings.
