Legal experts are already noticing curious aspects about Donald Trump‘s legal filing late Monday afternoon – including with the strategy and writing of the motion, and that Trump may be representing himself. In that new filing, Trump asks the court to block DOJ from reviewing the White House records, including classified documents federal agents confiscated two weeks ago, and appoint a “special master.”
Attorney Tristan Snell, who successfully prosecuted the case against Trump University, points to a screenshot from the federal court’s PACER system, and says, “Trump is representing HIMSELF, with no lawyer at all, in his case against the United States regarding the search of Mar-a-Lago and recovery of government records. The legal term is ‘pro se’ – for himself. He could not find anyone to represent him.”
“There are attorneys on a motion, though,” Snell adds, meaning at the end of the document there are three of Trump’s new attorneys’ names listed.
“So what is going on here?” he asks. “Is this a publicity stunt by Trump? Or some kind of administrative snafu? Or did the attorneys file the motion without first appearing / being admitted for the case?”
“This is highly unusual, to say the least.”
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Noted attorney and former federal prosecutor Ken White, who runs the popular Popehat Twitter account, calls the filing “just bad,” and goes as far as to blast Trump’s attorneys, writing: “I mean this is shitty on every level. It’s shitty strategy, shitty lawyering, shitty writing, shitty organization. It’s even shitty as propaganda. It’s just incompetent.”
“Last time we had attorney-client privileged docs seized from a client we were in court to contest it THAT DAY. Two weeks later is . . . well,” White writes.
“Also, if I DID take two weeks to file it, with the greatest respect, it wouldn’t look like this,” White says. “This is just bad.”
“Also, when I file a motion, I use a weird trick,” he says apparently with some snark. “I identify the rule or statute I’m invoking that gives the court power to act and the rules governing the process. In criminal cases I cite criminal rules. And cases.”
“Finally, I think it’s fair to say I don’t have a LOT of shame, but I have enough that I wouldn’t file a motion arguing that my client took an official legal position the court should have noticed on Truth Social,” he adds.
Andrew Weissmann, who spent two decades at DOJ, including as General Counsel of the Federal Bureau of Investigation weighed in.
“The new Trump defense that the docs were for personal memoir,” Weissmann says. “1. That’s not an exception in any criminal statute. 2. Inconveniently for you, Gen. Petraeus did just that and was criminally charged.”
Weissmann concludes, “The new Trump Florida court filing is a press release masquerading (tenuously) as a legal brief.”