The government has docketed a less redacted version of the letter it originally posted asking for a Special Master to troll through Rudy Giuliani and Victoria Toensing’s devices to separate out the privileged material. As I predicted, the redacted parts of the letter describe the filter team search conducted on the material seized in November and December 2019.
That makes the argument this argument all the more cynical.
[T]he overt and public nature of these warrants necessitates, as Judge Wood observed, the appointment of a special master for the “perception of fairness, not fairness itself.”
Particularly given the admission that the government already obtained, “certain emails and text messages,” that they expect to find on the seized devices.
Which makes the other details more interesting. The FBI obtained 18 devices from Rudy in their search (though remember that thumb drives may count as a device for the purposes of a search).
But with Toensing, the government showed up with a warrant, “to search premises belonging to Victoria Toensing and seize certain electronic devices” — devices, plural. But the FBI came back with just one device.
So why did the government think they’d come back with multiple devices and where did those devices go?