Time For Your Monday TRUMP RAID Update!

Be there, will be wild.

On Friday afternoon, US Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart unsealed a redacted version of the affidavit authorizing the FBI to search the former president's south Florida temple of tackiness. Once again, Donald Trump's PR strategy of screaming bloody murder and demanding transparency from his accusers ran headlong into a rational legal strategy of shutting the hell up and letting experienced counsel negotiate behind the scenes, leaving rationality sprawled on the ground wondering why it just got sacked by its own teammate.

In fact, the affidavit revealed that the former president, "FPOTUS," made off with at least two dozen boxes full of government property, some of which was sensitive defense information derived from human sources, and refused to give it back for upwards of a year, even after being subpoenaed.

The Washington Post has a hair-raising piece on Trump's habit of tossing classified and unclassified documents together in cardboard boxes and having his aides schlep the whole mess around wherever he went:

Boxes of documents even came with Trump on foreign travel, following him to hotel rooms around the world — including countries considered foreign adversaries of the United States.

"There was no rhyme or reason — it was classified documents on top of newspapers on top of papers people printed out of things they wanted him to read. The boxes were never organized,” Grisham said. “He’d want to get work done on long trips so he’d just rummage through the boxes. That was our filing system.”

So Trump was leaving data about human sources in foreign hotels when he visited? Awesome!

Last week, Trump's lawyers filed an insane motion in Florida screeching that the Justice Department is BIASED against Trump, that the raid was UNLEGAL, that Attorney General Merrick Garland is MEAN, and that it's NO FAIR that Hillary Clinton didn't go to email jail, while Donald Trump, who "cooperated" fully with the National Archives (NARA) had his home invaded. Boo hoo!

Trump hit the jackpot when the case was assigned to US District Judge Aileen Cannon, a 41-year-old Trump appointee. But even Judge Cannon wasn't going to do anything on the basis of that pile of dog vomit, so she told them to go away and come back with an actual legal document, laying out specifically what they wanted, and why they were entitled to get it. And while they were at it, they were supposed to explain why they haven't yet managed to serve the government.

On Friday night Trump's sparkle magic legal team complied with the order ... sort of . What they want is for the court to impose a special master to conduct a privilege review of the documents seized, and for the FBI to issue them a more detailed receipt laying out exactly what was taken. As to why they haven't yet managed to serve the government, they say that they emailed the DOJ, and, even though that's not technically compliant, they should get credit anyway. They also told a whole pack of lies about how cooperative FPOTUS and his lawyers have been, and painted this as a simple dispute over the Presidential Records Act, "even though the Presidential Records Act is not a criminally-enforceable statute" — conveniently ignoring the Espionage Act and obstruction allegations very clearly laid out in the warrant,

And even though the document was preposterous on its face, it was good enough for Judge Cannon, who issued an order on Saturday announcing her preliminary intent to appoint a special master in light of "Plaintiff’s submissions and the exceptional circumstances presented." Trump is getting most of what he wants here, with Cannon ordering the DOJ to file under seal a detailed inventory of what was seized and a "particularized notice indicating the status of Defendant’s review of the seized property, including any filter review conducted by the privilege review team and any dissemination of materials beyond the privilege review team." And for the public docket, prosecutors will need to file a motion responding to the request for a special master in advance of a hearing Wednesday.

In a word, this is fucking ridiculous, not least because those bloody idiots still haven't managed to serve the defendant. This case is already live in another court, there's no basis for the court's jurisdiction, the court has already announced its conclusion before hearing from the parties, and it calls for the government to tip its hand on the status of an ongoing investigation. And not for nothing, but issuing an order on Saturday afternoon calling for the government to respond on Tuesday to a non-emergency motion regarding a search that took place three weeks ago is totally nuts.

It's also stupidly risky for Trump, who is all but daring the government to file a public document making him look even more guilty than he already does. But stupidly risky is kind of Trump's brand, so here we are.

In advance of the deadline for tomorrow's filings, this morning Juan Antonio Gonzalez, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and Jay I. Bratt, Chief of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section of the DOJ National Security Division, entered their appearance on behalf of the government. They also made a pointed reference to the filter team from the original warrant authorized by Judge Reinhart and indicated that they've already gone through all the materials, as would have been expected from what was basically a handful of documents collected three weeks ago.

"Although the government will provide the Court more detail in its forthcoming supplemental filing, the government notes that, before the Court issued its Preliminary Order, and in accordance with the judicially authorized search warrant's provisions, the Privilege Review Team (as described in paragraphs 81-84 of the search warrant affidavit) identified a limited set of materials that potentially contain attorney-client privileged information, completed its review of those materials, and is in the process of following the procedures set forth in paragraph 84 of the search warrant affidavit to address potential privilege disputes, if any," they write.

They also note that "the Department of Justice and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence ("ODNI") are currently facilitating a classification review of materials recovered pursuant to the search" a reference to the ongoing intelligence assessment demanded by Congress of the damage that may have occurred from FPOTUS apparently storing data gathered by human sources in the storage locker by the pool at his country club.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that Trump's lawyers' bizarro strategies have left their DOJ counterparts scratching their heads.

"Mr. Trump, people familiar with his thinking say, sees the attorney general, Merrick B. Garland, not as the federal government’s chief law enforcement officer, but merely as a political foe and someone with whom he can haggle with about how much anger exists over the situation," Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush report.

Apparently the straight-arrow lawyers at the Justice Department, who don't speak mobster as a first language, were "befuddled" by Trump's message that “The country is on fire. What can I do to reduce the heat?” Was it a threat? A negotiation tactic? Who the hell even knows? And meanwhile Boris Epshteyn, a lawyer who spent the past 15 years working as a Republican comms dick, is "the closest thing to a legal quarterback in Mr. Trump’s orbit" these days, says NYT.

This week should be wild. Aren't they all, though.

[ WaPo / NYT / Trump v. US , Docket via Court Listener]

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