Trump Lawyers Deploy Slow-Down Tactics But Trump's Case Doesn't Improve

It's been nearly a week since the Justice Department asked the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to expedite consideration of its request to end special review of documents taken from its Mar-A-Lago Beach Club. Today the appeals court agreed to speed up the process. The Justice Department's appeal was not as quick as the Justice Department would have liked, but it was on a faster track than the Trump team had proposed, although this small part of the legal saga has been accelerated, if you look In the bigger picture, you'll see that almost everything related to the Mar-A-Lago investigation is operating on a delayed timeline that is by design, as Politico notes that Trump's team has now managed to take the legal fight over the marine documents to Cuatro Arenas, the New York courtroom of special judge Raymond Deary, who is Trump's team.

He was asked to review material taken from Mar-A-Lago, the Florida courtroom of District Judge Eileen Cannon, who approved Trump's request for a special hearing. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, where Trump asked for a delay of the Japanese Justice Department's request to speed things up. Throughout and yesterday, the Supreme Court in Washington DC, where Trump is asking for an intervention to recover classified documents before the special master and potentially hinder the Justice Department's criminal investigation, the multiple notes of Moving Political Parties have complicated the status of Trump's difficult legal situation. which, of course, is the point here to complicate a matter that is essentially not that complicated.

Trump took thousands of White House documents, including hundreds of classified documents, to his Florida home and for months refused to return them and even lied about their existence in response. to a federal subpoena that triggered an FBI search of Mar-A-Lago. Joining us now is Andrew Weissman, former general counsel of the FBI and current law professor at New York University. Andrew, thanks for being here. It's good to be here. Well, I mean four different courtrooms, who has the most strength? On the other hand, it's very difficult to know right now because at first glance you would think, "Oh, the Department of Justice," because Trump is fighting all these legal battles, but those battles have the effect of

slow

ing down and complicating the urgent work of the Justice Department.

Well, I think the first thing to remember. When you're a potential defendant, your job is to do what Trump's legal team is doing. That's what you do. You know you try everything you can and the legal system is supposed to listen to those claims and you know if they're not Merit Merit Donovan, you rule against them, the root of the problem here is Judge Camden, yeah, um, so you know, yes she appointed a Special Master you know at this point Donald Trump is ruining the day because the Special Master is not playing. ball, it's her nightmare because she's actually a real judge and that's why you suddenly see Judge Cannon overruling the special master, that never happens especially when a special master is another federal judge, but she's really the root of the problem because he's done things that are just so, you know, it's just really inadequate or you just don't follow the facts or the law, which is why you got the 11th Circuit involved and you saw two Trump appointees while we were discussing who was on a panel. of three that ruled against Judge Cannon and it is It is important to remember with Specter Clarence Thomas that people understand that it was not really a Donald Trump election.

He's every circuit, every federal appeals court has a Supreme Court judge who oversees any emergency relief, so he happens to be the judge. for this particular circuit, for the 11th circuit exactly and he has limited authority, he cannot just unilaterally do something that cannot be reviewed by the entire court and it is also unlikely that, if he wanted to, he would grant something that he would not do . send it to the full Court to decide, so be optimistic because there has been a lot of speculation and concern because Clarence Thomas is the judge overseeing this in the 11th Circuit while he is on the Supreme Court. could somehow take all this into account, you are optimistic that the entire airport will check it and then what they won't they will find in favor of Trump.

Yeah, I would say what I'm optimistic about is that Clarence Thomas will deny it. he says it at first glance because it's so ridiculous and he

doesn

't, he just

doesn

't need to accept any of this or two, he could just sit on this, in other words there is nothing that requires him to rule quickly and in fact he doesn't there's nothing I suggest that's rushing this review and I might wait to see what circuit 11 does, um and then it might all get a little bit muted. Would you really expect Clarence Thomas to just sit back? I mean, given his previous position in Affairs, uh.

Trump Issues: You think it's possible that you could be so hostile to this

case

since it's about Trump's interests. I would say first that I think it's important that you send something to the full court and not decide something unilaterally and then if you are the chief justice. Roberts, there are many institutional reasons not to get involved in something like this. They have taken so many public hits in terms of whether they are a political body and this is a

case

where there is so little merit. to what is being argued and there are many ways not to rule on this and I mean, they just understand that the Supreme Court rarely takes something well, um, so this is not one where you read the brief and say, oh God. mine, an injustice has occurred. done here, well, yeah, I mean, and I will say they're hearing cases right now and I think a lot of people are concerned that they wish they didn't take them, let me just in terms of Eileen Cannon, all roads keep coming back to you're right, I want That is to say, if there are debates about whether Judge Jerry somehow revisits these classified documents, there could be a fight between the Trump team and the Department of Justice over what actually is privilege, ultimately Judge Cannon has than to be the one to resolve that dispute.

How much can the courts do with Judge Cannon, who so far has proven to be a champion of Donald Trump's interests to the extent that I believe she is not practicing the best jurisprudence? Yes, so understand if Donald Trump prevailed. in the Supreme Court, all it would mean is that Judge Deary will be able to see the classified documents and there is no way on God's green earth for him to say "oh, these documents that are classified, now I want to share them with the team of Trump." I'm not going to want to do that and there will be tension because Judge Cannon will want to give it to him.

This is where I think the off-ramp is, which is the 11th Circuit appeal, which is now expedited and is in a much quicker process. In a faster way than you think Donald Trump wanted, they could put an end to all of this because one of the arguments the government is making is that there really was no jurisdiction for Eileen Cannon to stick her nose in this and Judge Deary actually you have said the same thing, i.e. can you explain to me why this was not brought before the magistrate who first heard this? because he asks the question, he understands how normal processes work, a person not in this fiction nor the name rhymes with Smannon, Andrew Weissman, the former General Counsel of the FBI, thank you as always for the wisdom and welcome from him.