Donald Trump’s legal team is objecting to multiple aspects of the review process proposed by “Special Master” Judge Raymond Dearie. Initially, Trump’s team did something decidedly odd—it filed its objections under seal, hiding away exactly what it found wanting in Dearie’s plan. Only the Department of Justice followed up by filing their response to Dearie’s plan not under seal, and in it, they discussed multiple aspects of Trump’s objections, giving some visibility into just what Trump was after. This angered Trump’s team enough to generate another round of objections, and it appears the original set of objections is now visible. Whew.
So, just what did Trump want? On legal filings still made on classic ambulance chaser letterhead (“Hands-on counsel, gloves-off litigation”), the biggest goal is what Trump always wants: delay. To get this delay, Trump’s legal eagles are focusing on two areas. One involves a claim that Judge Dearie is exceeding the authority granted him by District Judge Aileen Cannon. The second is simply that there’s too much material to get through in the time Dearie has allocated.
That second claim comes attached to a number: 200,000. That’s how many pages that Trump’s team is now saying were in the 11,000 documents removed from Mar-a-Lago. So many pages that Trump’s team is claiming they can’t even get vendors to scan it all on Dearie’s schedule. Only that number is, at best, incorrect, and more likely just a flat-out lie.
