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Only Eric Herschmann (and Maybe Christina Bobb) Learned the Steve Bannon Lesson

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There’s a lot to unpack in this NYT story about the in-fighting on Trump’s legal team.

It confirms that prosecutors have asked to interview Christina Bobb and notes that she “added language to” the declaration that Evan Corcoran wrote about his search for documents “to make it less ironclad a declaration before signing it.” (If I had to guess, I’d say this pertains to the limits on the search having taken place at Mar-a-Lago.) The story proclaims ignorance about whether Bobb actually has testified. But the shift in how DOJ has discussed Corcoran — describing him claiming he “was advised” about certain topics in the search warrant affidavit, but then stating he “represented” those same topics at the June 3 meeting in their response to Trump’s request for a Special Master — is consistent with Bobb refusing to be made the fall-gal. DOJ’s assertion that Trump’s lawyers might be “witnesses,” plural, in their motion for a stay to the 11th Circuit also suggests some inside knowledge about things that another Trump lawyer may have done (note, the reference in the affidavit to Corcoran as FPOTUS Counsel 1 suggests another Trump lawyer is described in it later in the affidavit).

NYT also describes Eric Herschmann’s famously candid opinions, this time about the value of Boris Epshteyn’s legal advice.

“I certainly am not relying on any legal analysis from either of you [Corcoran and John Rowley] or Boris who — to be clear — I think is an idiot,” Mr. Herschmann wrote in a different email. “When I questioned Boris’s legal experience to work on challenging a presidential election since he appeared to have none — challenges that resulted in multiple court failures — he boasted that he was ‘just having fun,’ while also taking selfies and posting pictures online of his escapades.”

I have been wondering whether Epshteyn, in particular, were just exploiting Trump for his own objectives before he moves onto some other convenient vehicle for extremism after Trump is crushed by legal troubles inadequately defended, and this anecdote would be consistent with that.

But the larger story describes how Herschmann refused to simply just bullshit his way through privilege invocations before a January 6 grand jury. The story is based on an email thread in which Corcoran — who helped Steve Bannon get convicted of contempt — attempted to persuade Herschmann to follow the exact same approach to testifying that Bannon (and John Rowley client Peter Navarro) adopted with the January 6 Committee: To refuse to testify based off a claim of Executive Privilege that Trump had not formally invoked.

Incidentally, that’s the very same approach Trump has used before Aileen Cannon. Thus far it has worked like a charm for her. It has been less successful with every other investigative body.

In fact, Herschmann seems to have made precisely the same point I have in the past, to Corcoran (and Rowley): Executive Privilege doesn’t work the way Corcoran claimed it did when he was busy shepherding Bannon to a contempt conviction.

In his emails to Mr. Corcoran and Mr. Rowley, Mr. Herschmann — a prominent witness for the House select committee on Jan. 6 and what led to it — invoked Mr. Corcoran’s defense of Mr. Bannon and argued pointedly that case law about executive privilege did not reflect what Mr. Corcoran believed it did.

So after repeated insistence that he get a real privilege invocation and after refusing to discuss these things without a documentary trail, the morning before Herschmann would have testified, Trump’s lawyers acceded to Herschmann’s demand for a proper invocation of privilege.

After ignoring Mr. Herschmann or giving him what he seemed to consider perplexing answers to the requests for weeks, two of the former president’s lawyers, M. Evan Corcoran and John Rowley, offered him only broad instructions in late August. Assert sweeping claims of executive privilege, they advised him, after Mr. Corcoran had suggested that an unspecified “chief judge” would ultimately validate their belief that a president’s powers extend far beyond their time in office.

[snip]

Mr. Corcoran at one point sought to get on the phone with Mr. Herschmann to discuss his testimony, instead of simply sending the written directions, which alarmed Mr. Herschmann, given that Mr. Herschmann was a witness, the emails show.

In language that mirrored the federal statute against witness tampering, Mr. Herschmann told Mr. Corcoran that Mr. Epshteyn, himself under subpoena in Georgia, “should not in any way be involved in trying to influence, delay or prevent my testimony.”

“He is not in a position or qualified to opine on any of these issues,” Mr. Herschmann said.

Mr. Epshteyn declined to respond to a request for comment.

Nearly four weeks after Mr. Herschmann first asked for an instruction letter and for Mr. Trump’s lawyers to seek a court order invoking a privilege claim, the emails show that he received notification from the lawyers — in the early morning hours of the day he was scheduled to testify — that they had finally done as he asked. [my emphasis]

So let’s talk about the timing of all this — and also about how Glenn Thrush, who is a politics reporter who knows fuckall about DOJ, keeps getting scoops about details that would be known to those being investigated, including this email chain that would be protected by the same principles of attorney-client privilege that Corcoran claimed to be vigorously protecting in it.

The emails were obtained by The New York Times from a person who was not on the thread of correspondence. Mr. Herschmann declined to comment.

According to a slew of reports, Herschmann was first subpoenaed around August 15. Given the timeline laid out in the story, describing that Herschmann asked for four weeks before getting a formal privilege letter, it would suggest he didn’t get a formal privilege invocation until around September 12 — days ago, perhaps even more recently than that.

According to an equally coordinated set of stories, the two Pats — Cipollone and Philbin, who happen to be law partners — were subpoenaed earlier than that. Those reports, which came out on August 3, eleven days before the stories about Herschmann being subpoenaed, described how there was some discussion about how to handle Executive Privilege claims.

A federal grand jury has subpoenaed former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone in its investigation into the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol and efforts to overturn the 2020 election, sources with direct knowledge of the matter told ABC News.

The sources told ABC News that attorneys for Cipollone — like they did with the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — are expected to engage in negotiations around any appearance, while weighing concerns regarding potential claims of executive privilege.

As ABC pointed out, before he testified to the January 6 Committee, Cipollone made a similarly big fuss about Executive Privilege.

But when he testified to the Committee, Cipollone made specious privilege invocations to avoid testifying about the former President cheering violence, including violence directed at his Vice President.

UNKNOWN: My question is exactly that, that it sounds like you from the very outset of violence at the Capitol, right around 2:00, were pushing for a strong statement that people should leave the Capitol. Is that right?

PAT CIPOLLONE: I was, and others were as well.

UNKNOWN: Pat, you said that you expressed your opinion forcefully. Could you tell us exactly how you did that?

PAT CIPOLLONE: Yeah, I can’t — I don’t have, you know, I have to — on the privilege issue, I can’t talk about conversations with the President, but I can generically say that I said, you know, people need to be told, there needs to be a public announcement fast that they need to leave the Capitol.

[snip]

UNKNOWN: Do you remember any discussion at any point during the day about rioters at the Capitol chanting hang Mike Pence?

PAT CIPOLLONE: Yes, I remember — I remember hearing that about that, yes. I don’t know if I observed that myself on TV.

UNKNOWN: I’m just curious. I understand the — the privilege line you’ve drawn, but do you remember what you can share with us about the discussion about those chants, the hang Mike Pence chants?

PAT CIPOLLONE: I can tell you my view of that.

UNKNOWN: Yeah, please.

PAT CIPOLLONE: My view of that is that is outrageous. And for anyone to suggest such a thing of the vice president of the United States, for people in that crowd to be chanting that I thought was terrible. I thought it was outrageous and wrong, and I expressed that very clearly.

ADAM SCHIFF: With respect to your conversations with Mr. Meadows, though, did you specifically raise your concern over the vice president with him, and — and how did he respond?

PAT CIPOLLONE: I believe I raised the concern about the vice president, and I — and I — again, the nature of his response, without recalling exactly was he — you know, people were doing all that they could.

ADAM SCHIFF: And — and what about the president? Did he indicate whether he thought the president was doing what needed to be done to protect the vice president?

UNKNOWN: Privilege. You have to assert it. That question would —

PAT CIPOLLONE: That would call for — I’m being instructed on privilege.

[snip]

LIZ CHENEY: And who on the staff did not want people to leave the Capitol?

PAT CIPOLLONE: On the staff?

LIZ CHENEY: In the White House, how about?

PAT CIPOLLONE: I don’t — I — I can’t think of anybody, you know, on that day who didn’t want people to get out of the — the Capitol once the — you know, particularly once the violence started, no. I mean —

ADAM SCHIFF: What about the president?

LIZ CHENEY: Yeah.

PAT CIPOLLONE: She said the staff, so I answered.

LIZ CHENEY: No, I said in the White House.

PAT CIPOLLONE: Oh, I’m sorry. I — I apologize. I thought you said who — who else on the staff. I — I — I can’t reveal communications, but obviously I think, you know, — yeah. [my emphasis]

Cipollone invoked Executive Privilege to avoid revealing details about Trump cheering the violence directed at his Vice President and hoping that rioters would stay at the Capitol. Cipollone made those privilege claims on July 8, two months before the rough date when, after much badgering, Herschmann succeeded in getting a letter invoking privilege from Trump’s lawyers.

That’s the only known formal invocation of Executive Privilege Trump has put in writing regarding January 6.

And if Herschmann got that letter on September 12, he would have gotten it after the two Pats testified in one-two fashion on September 2.

Email chains like this — by any measure, clearly privileged — usually get leaked (to politics reporters) when legally exposed individuals are trying to telegraph to each other important details about their testimony.

And whatever else this story conveys, it tells anyone who has already testified and invoked privilege that Chief Judge Beryl Howell has recently gotten, and will be deciding on, the first known formal invocation of privilege. Howell will be asked to weigh not just whether a White House Counsel can invoke Executive Privilege in a criminal investigation implicating the President, a topic about which Bill Clinton would have a lot to offer. She’ll also be asked, generally, about the privilege claims lawyers are making about an event — January 6 — that the Supreme Court has already decided Executive Privilege, at least, must be waived.

If Howell rejects Trump’s invocation of privilege with Herschmann, then any claims of Executive Privilege that the two Pats made in their one-two testimony on September 2 would fail as well.

And Pat Cipollone is a direct and credible witness to Trump’s cheers of violence directed at his Vice President.

The effort to get witnesses to invoke Executive Privilege without any formal invocation that Judge Howell would review is not new. Trump has been pursuing this for a year, first with Justin Clark telling Bannon to bullshit his way through privilege claims with the January 6 Committee, then with unnamed lawyers persuading Cipollone to bullshit his way through testimony to the January 6 Committee, and most recently to Evan Corcoran — who had a front row seat to see that not even former Clarence Thomas clerk Carl Nichols would buy such bullshit — continuing to pursue such an approach even after it led directly to Bannon’s conviction.

Eric Herschmann, at least (and possibly also Christina Bobb) has learned the lesson of Steve Bannon.

In Motion for a Stay, DOJ Raises Prospect that Trump Leaked Classified Documents

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In the government’s motion for a stay submitted to the 11th Circuit last night, it suggested the investigation into Trump’s stolen documents may have expanded to focus on whether the former President shared the content of highly classified documents with others.

It describes that Aileen Cannon’s order only permitted the government to review the classified documents for hypothetical risk of future disclosure. It notes that that would prohibit the government from investigating whether these documents have already been disclosed. It then raises the empty folders as a problem that must be solved, in part by identifying the patterns of Trump’s theft to identify what else he may have stolen.

The district court specified that its order should not interfere with the IC’s “classification review and/or intelligence assessment,” A14, and later clarified that “to the extent that such intelligence review becomes truly and necessarily inseparable from criminal investigative efforts,” the order “does not enjoin the Government from proceeding with its Security Assessments,” A9. But that is not sufficient. The IC’s review and assessment seek to evaluate the harm that would result from disclosure of the seized records. A40-A41. The court’s injunction restricts the FBI—which has lead responsibility for investigating such matters in the United States—from using the seized records in its criminal-investigative tools to assess which if any records were in fact disclosed, to whom, and in what circumstances.

For example, the court’s injunction bars the government from “using the content of the documents to conduct witness interviews.” A9. The injunction also appears to bar the FBI and DOJ from further reviewing the records to discern any patterns in the types of records that were retained, which could lead to identification of other records still missing. See A42 (describing recovery of “empty folders with ‘classified’ banners”). And the injunction would prohibit the government from using any aspect of the seized records’ contents to support the use of compulsory process to locate any additional records.

Disregarding a sworn declaration from a senior FBI official, the court dismissed such concerns as “hypothetical scenarios” and faulted the government for not identifying an “emergency” or “imminent disclosure of classified information.” A11. But the record makes clear that the materials were stored in an unsecure manner over a prolonged period, and the court’s injunction itself prevents the government from even beginning to take necessary steps to determine whether improper disclosures might have occurred or may still occur.

Significantly, the government doesn’t even use language to suggest that these documents were compromised, without Trump’s involvement — that some fake Rothschild or a hotel valet had snuck into the closet and stolen documents. It suggests these documents may have been disclosed, intentionally and knowingly.

This is not the only hint in the filing that the investigation may have expanded beyond mere unauthorized retention of classified records.

The motion also describes that Trump’s lawyers might be witnesses, plural, suggesting that Jim Trusty could be hidden in the search affidavit as the FPOTUS Counsel 2 implied by the affidavit’s description of Evan Corcoran as FPOTUS Counsel 1 (Christina Bobb is referred to merely as Individual 2).

The government came very close to saying that Judge Cannon has prohibited the government from preventing leaks in process.

Judge Aileen Cannon Deems Grand Jury Subpoenas Toilet Paper

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In Judge Aileen Cannon’s order blowing off national security in favor of Donald Trump’s claims of being a victim, she never once names the crimes under investigation.

Not the Espionage Act, 18 USC 793.

Not removing government documents, 18 USC 2071.

And definitely not obstruction, 18 USC 1519.

Her silence about the crimes for which a magistrate judge found probable cause is critical to the scheme behind her order.

That’s because — in a breathtaking paragraph — she suggests that the classification marks on the documents Trump stole are up for debate.

The Motion primarily seeks a stay of the September 5 Order insofar as it temporarily enjoins, in conjunction with the Special Master’s review of the seized materials, approximately 100 documents “marked as classified (and papers physically attached to them)” [ECF No. 69 p. 2 n.1]. In isolating the described documents from the larger set of seized materials, the Motion effectively asks the Court to accept the following compound premises, neither of which the Court is prepared to adopt hastily without further review by a Special Master. The first premise underlying the Motion is that all of the approximately 100 documents isolated by the Government (and “papers physically attached to them”) are classified government records, and that Plaintiff therefore could not possibly have a possessory interest in any of them. The second is that Plaintiff has no plausible claim of privilege as to any of these documents [ECF No. 69 p. 7 (categorically asserting that the “classified records at issue in this Motion . . . do not include personal records or potentially privileged communications”)]. The Court does not find it appropriate to accept the Government’s conclusions on these important and disputed issues without further review by a neutral third party in an expedited and orderly fashion. [my emphasis]

Had she discussed the Espionage Act, she might consider that it doesn’t matter whether Trump claims to have declassified the documents. What matters is if they are National Defense Information.

Cannon’s silence about obstruction is even more outlandish. No one contests that these documents are marked classified! Trump has not even formally contested they’re classified. But the entire question is what to do about documents marked classified.

If the are marked as classified — which no one contests! — then they were responsive to the May 11 subpoena. And if Trump withheld documents responsive to the May 11 subpoena, he committed the crime of obstruction.

And that’s why Aileen Cannon doesn’t want to talk about the crimes under investigation here. Because once you do, then there’s no question but those documents marked as classified are either evidence of the crime, Espionage Act, or the crime, obstruction — and probably both.

Go to emptywheel resource page on Trump Espionage Investigation.

Aileen Cannon Orders Government to Share Classified Information with Trump’s Counsel

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I’ll have a lot more to say about Judge Aileen Cannon’s order blowing off National Security in favor of Trump’s half-assed claims of being a victim. Her order is a radical assault on national security and rule of law.

But for the moment, I want to look at this part of her work flow order.

Make available for inspection by Plaintiff’s counsel, with controlled access conditions (including necessary clearance requirements) and under the supervision of the Special Master, the documents marked as classified and the papers attached to such documents; and

It orders the government to make the classified documents stolen by Trump available to his attorneys, including Evan Corcoran, who is either a witness or a subject of this investigation. None are known to be cleared. Aside from Jim Trusty, it’s not clear how quickly any of them can be cleared.

In her order, she claims this involves sharing only with the Special Master, Raymond Dearie.

The Government also presents the argument, in passing, that making the full scope of the seized materials available to the Special Master would itself create irreparable harm [ECF No. 69 p. 18]. Insofar as the Government argues that disclosure to a Special Master of documents marked as classified necessarily creates an irreparable injury because the special master process in this case is unnecessary, the Court disagrees for the reasons previously stated. Separately, to the extent the Government appears to suggest that it would suffer independent irreparable harm from review of the documents by the Court’s designee with appropriate clearances and controlled access, that argument is meritless

But these are completely contradictory. One document says the government must share classified information with Trump’s people. The other document says, “it’s only Raymond Dearie, don’t worry your little heads.”

And she just waves her hands and says the government must share this stuff, “including necessary clearance requirements,” without acknowledging that she doesn’t get to decide that. If the government says that none of Trump’s lawyers can be cleared, they get to say that (again, I expect fewer concerns about Trusty, but major concerns about Corcoran).

That’s par for the course of this order.

Go to emptywheel resource page on Trump Espionage Investigation.

Evan Corcoran’s Two May 25 Stall Letters

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A number of people have observed that the language in the newly unsealed parts of the Trump search warrant about what Evan Corcoran told Jay Bratt and others on June 3 emphasizes that “he was advised” certain things that (we now know) turned out to be false.

During receipt of the production, FPOTUS COUNSEL 1 stated he was advised all the records that came from the White House were stored in one location within Mar-a-Lago, the STORAGE ROOM, and the boxes of records in the STORAGE ROOM were “the remaining repository” of records from the White House. FPOTUS COUNSEL 1 further stated he was not advised there were any records in any private office space or other location in Mar-a-Lago. The agents and DOJ COUNSEL were permitted to see the STORAGE ROOM and observed that approximately fifty to fifty-five boxes remained in the STORAGE ROOM. [5 lines redacted] Other items were also present in the STORAGE ROOM, including a coat rack with suit jackets, as well as interior decor items such as wall art and frames. [my emphasis]

For comparison, here’s how that exchange was described in DOJ’s response to Trump’s motion for a stay.

After producing the Redweld, counsel for the former President represented that all the records that had come from the White House were stored in one location—a storage room at the Premises (hereinafter, the “Storage Room”), and the boxes of records in the Storage Room were “the remaining repository” of records from the White House. Counsel further represented that there were no other records stored in any private office space or other location at the Premises and that all available boxes were searched. As the former President’s filing indicates, the FBI agents and DOJ attorney were permitted to visit the storage room. See D.E. 1 at 5-6. Critically, however, the former President’s counsel explicitly prohibited government personnel from opening or looking inside any of the boxes that remained in the storage room, giving no opportunity for the government to confirm that no documents with classification markings remained. [my emphasis]

On August 8, FBI emphasized that Corcoran was simply describing what “he was advised.” By August 30, DOJ summarized what Trump, in the person of his attorney, “represented.”

The earlier emphasis on what Corcoran was told lends weight to the interpretation that DOJ believes he is a witness, not a subject, to an obstruction investigation. Yes, if he genuinely was lied to, then he’s probably safe from any criminal exposure himself, but will likely, eventually, have to explain that to investigators.

But that’s not the only thing notable about the newly unsealed sections, as pertains to Corcoran.

For example, his prohibition on searching boxes was not unsealed. Neither in that passage nor in any other place in the unsealed affidavit does the description of how Corcoran refused to let Bratt and the three FBI agents open any boxes appear (I’ve bolded how it appeared in DOJ’s response). Some of the five redacted lines of the paragraph describing the storage room likely describe all the reasons why the storage room doesn’t comply with the CFR on storing classified documents. The coat rack and the wall art are likely included as evidence that the storage room was not exclusively available to those with a Need to Know the classified information Trump was storing in the room. But somewhere, in that paragraph or in another one, the affidavit almost certainly describes that Corcoran prohibited the FBI from opening the boxes. It would be pertinent to FBI’s request to search what was really in those boxes. So a description that Corcoran prohibited the FBI from looking is almost certainly in the affidavit, but remains redacted, even though DOJ’s claim that Corcoran prohibited the FBI from looking inside the boxes was made public in DOJ’s response.

If that’s right, it suggests the FBI must still consider that refusal to be of investigative interest, and so redacted it.

It’s a third reference to Corcoran, though, where the newly unsealed language provides most interesting new context.

51. DOJ has advised me that, on May 11, 2022 an attorney representing FPOTUS, “FPOTUS COUNSEL 1,” agreed to accept service of a grand jury subpoena from a grand jury sitting in the District of Columbia sent to him via email by one of the prosecutors handling this matter for DOJ “DOJ COUNSEL.” The subpoena was directed to the custodian of records for the Office of Donald J. Trump and it requested the following materials:

Any and all documents or writings in the custody or control of Donald J. Trump and/or the Office of Donald J. Trump bearing classification markings including but not limited to the following: Top Secret Secret Confidential Top Secret/SIG/NOFORN/ORCON Top Secret/SI-G/NOFORN Top Secret/HCSO/NOFORN/ORCON Top Secret/HCS-O/NOFORN Top Secret/HCSP/NOFORN/ORCON, Top Secret/HCS-P/NOFORN Top Secret/TK/NOFORN/ORCON Top Secret/TK/NOFORN, Secret/NOFORN, Confidential/NOFORN TS TS/SAP TS/SI-G/NF/OC TS/SI-G/NF TS/HCSO/NF/OC TS/HCS-O/NF TS/HCS-P/NF/OC TS/HCS-P/NF, TS/HCS-P/SI-G TS/HCS-P/SI/TK TS/TKINF/OC, TS/TK/NF S/NF, S/FRD S/NATO S/SI, C, and C/NF.

The return date of the subpoena was May 24, 2022. DOJ COUNSEL also sent FPOTUS COUNSEL 1 a letter that permitted alternative compliance with the subpoena by “providing any responsive documents to the FBI at the place of their location” and by providing from the custodian a “sworn certification that the documents represent all responsive records. ” The letter further stated that if no responsive documents existed, the custodian should provide a sworn certification to that effect.

52. On May 25, 2022, while negotiating for an extension of the subpoena, FPOTUS COUNSEL 1 sent two letters to DOJ COUNSEL. In the second such letter, which is attached as Exhibit 1, FPOTUS COUNSEL 1 asked DOJ to consider a few “principles,” which include FPOTUS COUNSEL 1 ‘s claim that a President has absolute authority to declassify documents. In this letter, FPOTUS COUNSEL 1 requested, among other things, that “DOJ provide this letter to any judicial officer who is asked to rule on any motion pertaining to this investigation, or on any application made in connection with any investigative request concerning this investigation.” [my emphasis]

The description of the May 11 subpoena and Jay Bratt letter accompanying it got unsealed with this release. None of that description is new, though the fact that this is the first mention of both Bratt and Corcoran in the affidavit means the following earlier discussions, including an April 29 explanation from NSD — probably Bratt — about the national security urgency of reviewing the documents returned in January would not have appeared before that in the affidavit (though could later in it).

April 11, 2022: FBI letterhead memorandum asks NARA for access to Trump documents

April 12, 2022: NARA informs Trump of access request

April 29, 2022: NSD to Evan Corcoran letter laying out NatSec urgency (not public)

April 29, 2022: Evan Corcoran letter to NARA asking for further delay (not public)

May 1, 2022: Evan Corcoran letter to NARA asking for further delay (not public)

May 5, 2022: Evan Corcoran asks for access to the Trump records for representatives (not public)

May 10, 2022: Steidel Wall to Corcoran advising him she would give FBI access starting May 12

The May 10 letter from Steidel Wall to Corcoran was included in the government’s response to Trump’s Special Master request but not among the items that DOJ asked Chief Judge Beryl Howell to unseal as grand jury material. It appears that it has become a focus of the public discussion because John Solomon made it one.

The passage above also unsealed the first sentence of paragraph 25 (the rest of that paragraph was unsealed in the first release). We already knew about one May 25 letter from Corcoran — DOJ diligently included it with the affidavit, as instructed by Corcoran, and so it was unsealed in the first unsealing.

That Corcoran actually sent two letters that day was already made public in this letter to Beryl Howell, though probably few other people noticed. This is probably the first that most people will realize Corcoran sent two letters that day. More importantly, the newly unsealed sentence makes its relation to the subpoena more obvious.

The subpoena deadline was May 24. By that day, document custodians from all of Trump’s properties should have shown up at their local FBI office with the remaining classified documents Trump retained. If they had, we might never have heard of all this. But on May 25 — the day after the subpoena deadline — Corcoran, after having stalled the FBI’s access to the 15 boxes for a month, was still asking for more time to respond to the subpoena issued two weeks earlier. All the while he was making false claims that this aspect of the investigation had leaked.

It’s against that background that Corcoran sent not one but two letters. This one is the second he sent that day. It doesn’t mention the pending subpoena, at all. Rather, it did the following:

  • Argue that because public trust is low (thanks to Donald Trump) any actions by DOJ must not involve politics
  • Complain that the news of the NARA referral (which NARA shared with Congress after warning Trump for months they might resort to doing so) was publicly reported
  • Claim falsely there were, “Leaks about an investigation that involve the residence of a former President”
  • Assert that the President has absolute authority to declassify things (without claiming that Trump had declassified things)
  • Lay out the (IMO) most catastrophically shitty legal advice made public this year, that Corcoran believed only 18 USC 1924 was implicated in this investigation
  • Cite an IG Report stating that DOJ has to remain free of political influence
  • Include two paragraphs that, Corcoran requested, be shared with any judge ruling on a motion or application in connection with this investigation.

Here’s what those paragraphs say:

Long-standing DOJ policy requires that DOJ attorneys be candid in representations made to judges. Pursuant to those policies, we request that DOJ provide this letter to any judicial officer who is asked to rule on any motion pertaining to this investigation, or on any application made in connection with any investigative request concerning this investigation.

The official policy ofDOJ further requires that prosecutors present exculpatory evidence to a grand jury. Pursuant to that policy, we request that DOJ provide this letter to any grand jury considering evidence in connection with this matter, or any grand jury asked to issue a subpoena for testimony or documents in connection with this matter. [my emphasis]

Effectively, the entire letter — written at a time when Corcoran was trying to negotiate a delayed response to a subpoena — was a pitch to a judge that there could be no probable cause that Trump had committed a crime, because 18 USC 1924 didn’t apply to him (remember, this is the statute Trump made a felony in response to Hillary’s home server) and because he hypothetically could have declassified all the most sensitive secrets.

The reference to Kash Patel, immediately following the mention of this letter, makes more sense now; it might explain that when Debra Steidel Wall told Corcoran on May 10 that no one could review Trump’s papers without proper clearance, he acceded to that.

What’s interesting about this letter (aside from how catastrophically bad that 1924 advice was) is its audience. Corcoran would have known that a judge was already involved; Beryl Howell oversees grand juries in DC, including the one that issued a subpoena to the former President. But he didn’t ask that the letter be shared with any judges who already reviewed subpoenas. Rather, he was asking that it be shared in case of some motion or application.

Corcoran envisioned — at a time he was stalling on compliance with a subpoena — that DOJ might soon go before a judge with some kind of application, something like a search warrant, in hand.

They were playing a game of chicken.

That suggests that DOJ was already threatening to come get the stolen classified documents they knew to remain at Mar-a-Lago. It suggests that this letter, with its catastrophically bad 1924 advice, was an attempt to stave off that, when in fact it instead ensured that DOJ would include a footnote explaining that the Espionage Act (unlike 1924) pertained to National Defense Information, not classified information, which would also make Corcoran’s nod to Trump’s unlimited declassification powers pointless as well.

I continue to get some satisfaction that during the period Corcoran was giving Trump such catastrophically bad legal advice pertaining to stolen classified documents, he was helping write 30-page filings in the Bannon misdemeanor case that also didn’t work, not even with Carl Nichols. But I’m perverse like that.

Anyway, that detail — that Corcoran wrote a letter to a hypothetical judge reviewing a warrant application even while he was negotiating an extension to the already passed subpoena deadline — is important background to whatever search Corcoran did and whatever representations he made on June 3, all a stunt that (he probably assumed) would stave off any search, including his refusal to let the FBI look in the boxes that he claimed to have searched.

I have no idea what Corcoran knew on May 25 and what he knew on June 3. But the fact he sent a letter envisioning a hypothetical judicial review of a search warrant application suggests he knew that he had to stave off a search even before the FBI showed up on June 3, when he refused to permit a consensual search.

Go to emptywheel resource page on Trump Espionage Investigation.

Yes, Trump Was Making Notes on Classified Documents

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When the Trump search warrant was initially unsealed, many commentators focused on the description of documents bearing Trump’s notes.

From May 16-18, 2022, FBI agents conducted a preliminary review of the FIFTEEN BOXES provided to NARA and identified documents with classification markings in fourteen of the FIFTEEN BOXES. A preliminary triage of the documents with classification markings revealed the following approximate numbers: 184 unique documents bearing classification markings, including 67 documents marked as CONFIDENTIAL, 92 documents marked as SECRET, and 25 documents marked as TOP SECRET. Further, the FBI agents observed markings reflecting the following compartments/dissemination controls: HCS, FISA, ORCON, NOFORN, and SI. Based on my training and experience, I know that documents classified at these levels typically contain NDI. Several of the documents also contained what appears to be FPOTUS ‘s handwritten notes. [my emphasis]

At the time, I thought that was an overreading of the passage. After all, that paragraph is a description of the contents of fifteen boxes, of which just 184 documents have classification markings. Given the context, I believed it was possible this described other documents in the boxes, hand-written documents that also might also contain classified information. Trump’s notes from calls with foreign leaders, for example, might include classified information or be otherwise particularly sensitive.

But one of the newly unsealed passages from the affidavit released yesterday describes Trump’s handwritten notes on the documents on June 3, as well. (As noted, this passage also revealed that at least one of the documents bore a FISA marking, as the first did.)

A preliminary review of the documents contained in the Redweld envelope produced pursuant to the grand jury subpoena revealed the following approximate numbers: 38 unique documents bearing classification markings, including 5 documents marked as CONFIDENTIAL, 16 documents marked as SECRET, and 17 documents marked as TOP SECRET. Further, the FBI agents observed markings reflecting the following caveats/compartments, among others: HCS, SI, and FISA. [redacted] Multiple documents also contained what appears to be FPOTUS’s handwritten notes. [my emphasis]

In this case, there cannot be any doubt: the notes are on documents bearing classification marks. That’s because the only things Evan Corcoran handed over on June 3 were documents bearing classified markings.

In fact, of all the sets of documents turned over or seized, that set includes the highest concentration of Top Secret documents. Almost half those documents turned over were marked Top Secret.

(This table includes the contents of the leatherbound box in the total of classified documents seized on August 8, but also breaks it out, which shows the leatherbound box stored the second highest concentration of Top Secret documents.)

So, yeah, at least some of these documents — multiple, not just several — reflect Trump writing on classified documents.

We don’t yet know what that means. Nor is it clear when he wrote those notes. In fact, FBI might be able to use those notes to prove that Trump has gone back and referred to (and written on) these documents since he left the White House, after such time as the current President decided that the former President no longer had a need to know America’s most sensitive secrets.

The confirmation that Trump took notes on documents bearing classification markings is important background to Trump’s attempt to claim that documents marked classified might be his own personal documents, as he made hints of doing in these passages of his response to the government’s motion for a stay.

Yet, the Government apparently contends that President Trump, who had full authority to declassify documents, “willfully” retained classified information in violation of the law. See 18 U.S.C. § 793(e); [ECF No. 69 at 9].7

7 Of course, classified or declassified, the documents remain either Presidential records or personal records under the PRA.

[snip]

To the extent President Trump may have categorized certain of the seized materials as personal during his presidency, any disagreement as to that categorization is to be resolved under the PRA and cannot possibly form the basis for any criminal prosecution. [my emphasis]

That is, in an attempt to forestall an Espionage Act prosecution (the only time Trump has named the statute), he seems to be entertaining a claim that he first declassified these documents and then, by dint of writing on them, made them his own personal property.

Such an argument raises the stakes on the timing of his notes. If he only wrote on these documents after he left the White House, they would have been declassified government (often, Agency) documents on January 20, 2021, not personal documents. But if he wrote on these as President, then his notations would have been made, “in the course of conducting activities which relate to or have an effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President,” clearly making them Presidential Records under the Act. Either way, the documents belong in government custody.

The government scoffed at the possibility that Trump could have made classified documents personal records (it does not raise his notes on them).

Plaintiff’s suggestion that he “may have categorized certain of the seized materials as personal [records] during his presidency” pursuant to the PRA, D.E. 84 at 15, if true, would only supply another reason that he cannot assert executive privilege with regard to those records. If Plaintiff truly means to suggest that, while President, he chose to categorize records with markings such as “SECRET” and “TOP SECRET” as his personal records for purposes of the PRA, then he cannot assert that the very same records are protected by executive privilege—i.e., that they are “Presidential communications” made in furtherance of the “performance of his official duties.” Nixon v. GSA, 433 U.S. at 447, 456; see 44 U.S.C. § 2201(3) (defining “personal records” as records “of a purely private or nonpublic character which do not relate to or have an effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President”). In any event, whether Plaintiff declared documents with classification markings to be his “personal” records for purposes of the PRA has no bearing on the government’s compelling need to review them, both for national security purposes and as part of its investigation into the potentially unlawful retention of national defense information.2

2 Plaintiff’s characterization of the discretion the PRA provides the President to categorize records as “Presidential” or “personal,” D.E. 84 at 14-15 (citing Judicial Watch v. National Archives and Records Administration, 845 F. Supp. 2d 288 (D.D.C. 2012)), is thus irrelevant here. In any event, the district court decision on which Plaintiff relies did not concern classified records and does not support his assertion that a court must accept a former President’s claim that records that indisputably qualify as Presidential records under the PRA are instead personal records. Instead, the court in Judicial Watch concluded that it could not compel the National Archives and Records Administration to revisit a President’s decision about such a categorization. 845 F. Supp. 2d at 300-301. More fundamentally, the district court’s analysis in Judicial Watch has no bearing on the application of criminal law regarding unauthorized retention of national defense information, unauthorized removal of government documents, or obstruction of justice. 18 U.S.C. §§ 793, 2071, 1519.

If Trump claims to have made these classified documents his own personal documents while President (by writing on them), it would more clearly amount to theft, because otherwise any notes he wrote would be part of his official business, as noted above. But that’s currently what Trump is offering up as his defense.

Because he is suggesting that classified documents were declassified and made personal, the notes make it more likely that Trump used America’s secrets for his own private gain either during or after he left the Presidency. In fact, that appears to be the argument he’s offering in his defense!

Update: Tried to clarify my logic in the final two paragraphs per observations from Ariel817.

Go to emptywheel resource page on Trump Espionage Investigation.

“A Coat Rack with Suit Jackets, as Well as Interior Décor Items Such as Wall Art and Frames”

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As expected, MJ Bruce Reinhart has released a less redacted version of the Trump search warrant affidavit.

The newly unsealed information pertains to the two grand jury subpoenas — the May 11 and the June 24 one. The description of the second one confirms what I’ve been noting: that the video surveillance subpoena was dated June 24, not June 22 as Trump’s people have been saying.

It requested video going back to January 10. Trump’s camp had said they only turned over two months of video (which may be true — they may simply not archive more than two months of video). But DOJ attempted to get video from before Trump packed up the first set of boxes returned to NARA, suggesting they’ve known all along how he was sorting this.

Trump provided DOJ with the video on July 6, just about the date I guessed they would have gotten it. That means DOJ only took a month to write the affidavit to search Trump’s home.

There’s a slightly different description of the classifications of the documents that Evan Corcoran turned over. It reveals that at least one of those documents was marked FISA, as was true of the first batch.

The newly unsealed passages also reveal that along with all his stolen documents, Trump had, “a coat rack with suit jackets, as well as interior decor items such as wall art and frames.”

Finally, it appears that Jay Bratt or the FBI specifically asked Corcoran if he knew of documents stored “in any private office space.” He said no.

Update: Here’s the government reply on their motion for a stay. My favorite sentence is where DOJ has to point out to Judge Cannon that she can’t invoke Executive Privilege for Trump, nor can a Special Master.

In any event, it is Plaintiff—not the Court and not a special master—who would need to make an assertion of executive privilege and supply reasons supporting that assertion. He has provided none.

And then they spend a whole paragraph describing how, if Trump is really trying to assert ownership over classified documents via a claim he both declassified and designated them privileged, then he can’t withhold via an Executive Privilege claim from an investigation into 18 USC 793.

Plaintiff’s suggestion that he “may have categorized certain of the seized materials as personal [records] during his presidency” pursuant to the PRA, D.E. 84 at 15, if true, would only supply another reason that he cannot assert executive privilege with regard to those records. If Plaintiff truly means to suggest that, while President, he chose to categorize records with markings such as “SECRET” and “TOP SECRET” as his personal records for purposes of the PRA, then he cannot assert that the very same records are protected by executive privilege—i.e., that they are “Presidential communications” made in furtherance of the “performance of his official duties.” Nixon v. GSA, 433 U.S. at 447, 456; see 44 U.S.C. § 2201(3) (defining “personal records” as records “of a purely private or nonpublic character which do not relate to or have an effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President”). In any event, whether Plaintiff declared documents with classification markings to be his “personal” records for purposes of the PRA has no bearing on the government’s compelling need to review them, both for national security purposes and as part of its investigation into the potentially unlawful retention of national defense information.

 

[Photo: National Security Agency, Ft. Meade, MD via Wikimedia]

The Full-Fitton: Trump’s Funny Math with the Federal Records Act

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As I laid out here, you really don’t need to get further than the second paragraph of Trump’s response to DOJ’s bid for a stay on Judge Aileen Cannon’s injunction against using seized evidence of obstruction and Espionage Act violations to find evidence of a crime. In that paragraph, Trump confesses that the FBI did seize documents marked as classified — and therefore documents responsive to a May 11 subpoena — from Mar-a-Lago on August 8; that’s tantamount to a confession to obstruction.

I want to look at another funny thing he does, before I move to the subject of his gaslighting (whether these documents are genuinely classified or not, which is irrelevant to the crimes under investigation).

Trump is trying to stall the Espionage and obstruction investigation into him. But he’s also attempting to either claw back documents into his own possession, or to bottle them up at the Archives under separate legal challenges. As such, he’s adopting Tom Fitton’s argument — based on a very different set of Bill Clinton records that weren’t seized from his home via a lawful warrant but were instead FOIAed — that he designated many of these documents as personal records while still President, so they don’t even have to be in the Archives.

Critical to that argument is that documents are either Presidential Records or personal records, and the latter don’t have to be in the Archives, and so (he makes several huge logical jumps) they can’t be used in a criminal prosecution against him.

The PRA further distinguishes records as either Presidential or personal. 44 U.S.C. § 2201. Presidential records are defined as: documentary materials, or any reasonably segregable portion thereof, created or received by the President, the President’s immediate staff, or a unit or individual of the Executive Office of the President whose function is to advise or assist the President, in the course of conducting activities which relate to or have an effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President. 44 U.S.C. § 2201(2).

The PRA expressly excludes personal records from the definition of Presidential records. See id. § 2201(2)(B). Personal records are defined as “documentary materials, or any reasonably segregable portion therof, [sic] of a purely private or nonpublic character which do not relate to or have an effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President.” Id. § 2201(3). The PRA thus “distinguishes Presidential records from ‘personal records’” and “requires that all materials produced or received by the President, ‘to the extent practicable, be categorized as Presidential records or personal records upon their creation or receipt and be filed separately.’” Jud. Watch, Inc. v. Nat’l Archives & Recs. Admin., 845 F. Supp. 2d 288, 291 (D.D.C. 2012) (quoting 44 U.S.C. § § 2203(b)). “The categorization of the records during the Presidency controls what happens next . . . . The statute assigns the Archivist no role with respect to personal records once the Presidency concludes.” Id. (emphasis added). “The PRA contains no provision obligating or even permitting the Archivist to assume control over records that the President ‘categorized’ and ‘filed separately’ as personal records. At the conclusion of the President’s term, the Archivist only ‘assumes responsibility for the Presidential records.” Id. (quoting 44 U.S.C. § 2203(f)(1)). “[T]he PRA does not confer any mandatory or even discretionary authority on the Archivist to classify records. Under the statute, this responsibility is left solely to the President.” Id. at 301 (describing categorization decision by former President Clinton as not within the discretion of the Archivist as the subject materials “were not provided to the Archives at” the end of the Clinton presidency).

Critically, the former President has sole discretion to classify a record as personal or Presidential. See Jud. Watch, Inc., 845 F. Supp. 2d at 301 (“Under the statute, this responsibility is left solely to the President.”). The power of the Archivist is not greater than that of the President. Specifically, the PRA states “the Archivist of the United States shall assume responsibility for the custody, control, and preservation of, and access to, the Presidential records of that President.” 44 U.S.C. § 2203(f)(1). This section should not be interpreted as weakening a President’s authority under the Act. See Jud. Watch, Inc., 845 F. Supp. 2d at 300 (“[T]he plain language of section 2203(f) of the PRA does not say . . . that the Archivist must assume custody and control of all materials that fall within the definition of Presidential records.”).

Accordingly, all of the records at issue in the Government’s motion fall into two categories: (1) Presidential records, governed exclusively by the Presidential Records Act; and (2) personal records, the determination of which was in President Trump’s discretion. See id. To the extent President Trump may have categorized certain of the seized materials as personal during his presidency, any disagreement as to that categorization is to be resolved under the PRA and cannot possibly form the basis for any criminal prosecution. [my emphasis]

He’s not wrong about the Presidential Records Act reserving personal records. The category of personal records might even exempt documents pertaining to his coup attempt from storage at the Archives (though if Trump had made that designation, then he could not exempt them from subpoena under a claim of Executive Privilege, nor could he later claim those records memorialized his official acts).

(3) The term “personal records” means all documentary materials, or any reasonably segregable portion therof,2 of a purely private or nonpublic character which do not relate to or have an effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President. Such term includes—

(A) diaries, journals, or other personal notes serving as the functional equivalent of a diary or journal which are not prepared or utilized for, or circulated or communicated in the course of, transacting Government business;

(B) materials relating to private political associations, and having no relation to or direct effect upon the carrying out of constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President; and

(C) materials relating exclusively to the President’s own election to the office of the Presidency; and materials directly relating to the election of a particular individual or individuals to Federal, State, or local office, which have no relation to or direct effect upon the carrying out of constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President.

If these documents hadn’t been seized via a lawful warrant authorizing the seizure of everything stored with documents bearing classification marks, the government might have a tough fight to get them.

This is also the reason why Trump wants the Archivist excluded from any Special Master proceeding — so Trump can persuade someone, in secret, that he actually designated such records personal and such a claim would stand up under the PRA, without leaving a record for such time as FBI subpoenaed the very same documents as personal documents.

But Trump chose to hoard classified records and as a result, the FBI was forced to get a warrant and seize records more broadly.

Still, as far as it goes, the Fitton argument is that everything is either a Presidential Record or a personal record, and the latter don’t belong in the Archives, and that should trump (heh) their seizure with a lawful warrant that authorized the seizure of everything stored with or in the same place as documents marked as classified.

Except in the paragraph immediately before the Fitton argument, Trump concedes that’s not right. Before you split things into Presidential and personal records, you need to split them into Presidential and Federal Records.

All government records (classified or otherwise) fall into two basic categories, either under the PRA or the Federal Records Act (“FRA”). “The FRA defines a class of materials that are federal records subject to its provisions, and the PRA describes another, mutually exclusive set of materials that are subject to a different, less rigorous regime. In other words, no individual record can be subject to both statutes because their provisions are inconsistent.” Armstrong v. Exec. Office of the President, 1 F. 3d 1274, 1293 (D.C. Cir. 1993).

That is, he admits his two-category sorting is false.

And then he just drops the FRA, never to mention it again.

Even setting aside the example of Mike Ellis — who on January 8, 2021, was discovered to have brought a compartmented NSA document to the White House and, at first, “refused to return the document, retained it for the White House archives, and, based on what the NSA employee saw, placed the document in a container that did not meet the security storage requirements for such a sensitive program” — there would be a number of other documents, classified and not, that were brought to the White House but which remained agency records. Another category of agency documents, for example, are those pertaining to the Russian investigation, which should never have been at the White House in the first place, but which Trump wants to own for all time by simultaneously claiming he declassified and then made personal records of them.

None of those records would fit into Trump’s neat binary.

So he just ignores that and goes full-Fitton and hopes Aileen Cannon will ignore that bit.

Go to emptywheel resource page on Trump Espionage Investigation.

In Bid to Keep Executive from Accessing Executive Branch Documents, Trump Confesses to Obstruction

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In his 21-page response to Judge Aileen Cannon informing her they want her to reject the government’s request for a stay of her injunction prohibiting the government taking investigative steps using 103 documents marked classified, Trump confesses to obstruction of justice.

Trump admits, over and over, that when the FBI showed up with a warrant authorizing the seizure (in part) of any documents with classification markings, it found such documents on the premises.

[I]t appears such “classified records,” along with the other seized materials, were principally located in storage boxes in a locked room at Mar-a-Lago, a secure, controlled access compound utilized regularly to conduct the official business of the United States during the Trump Presidency, which to this day is monitored by the United States Secret Service.

Mind you, there’s a lie here, as there is in the passage where Trump describes “complying with a subpoena” as “voluntary” production.

Likewise, there was no similar sense of urgency or imminent threat associated with the “classified records” President Trump’s counsel voluntarily turned over on June 3, 2022.

The lie is that these documents weren’t all stored in storage boxes in a room that didn’t comply with the rules set by the Executive Order that still governs classified records. The most sensitive documents — along with most of the empty classification cover folders — were in Trump’s office, an office in which he routinely entertained people (including foreign citizens) not cleared to view classified records.

But even when Trump introduces the crux of his argument that the Presidential Records Act would guarantee him access to documents that are actually found to be Presidential (as opposed to Federal) Records, he doesn’t contest that the government seized documents marked as classified at his property.

Moreover, the ultimate disposition of all the “classified records,” and likely most of the seized materials, is indisputably governed exclusively by the provisions of the Presidential Records Act (“PRA”). See 44 U.S.C. §§ 2201, et seq. The PRA accords any President extraordinary discretion to categorize all his or her records as either Presidential or personal records, and established case law provides for very limited judicial oversight over such categorization. The PRA further contains no provision authorizing or allowing for any criminal enforcement. Rather, disputes regarding the disposition of any Presidential record are to be resolved between such President and the National Archives and Records Administration (“NARA”). Thus, at best, the Government might ultimately be able to establish certain Presidential records should be returned to NARA. What is clear regarding all of the seized materials is that they belong with either President Trump (as his personal property to be returned pursuant to Rule 41(g)) or with NARA, but not with the Department of Justice.

The likely reason why Trump lies about Evan Corcoran responding to a subpoena is because absent that lie, Trump would have to explain to Judge Cannon that every single one of those 103 documents with classification marks was proof that Trump had refused to comply with a subpoena and — via his lawyers, including one who signed this filing — lied to do so.

Nevertheless, the entire 21-page argument about classification (which also concedes that neither he nor Judge Cannon has any authority to review these documents for classification status) is not just gaslighting, but also a serial confession that, Yes, Donald Trump obstructed this investigation.

And that confession is — irrespective of the actual classification status of those documents — an admission that because each of those 103 documents is evidence that Trump obstructed an investigation, they belong in the hands of the FBI to continue their investigation of why Trump obstructed their investigation.

Go to emptywheel resource page on Trump Espionage Investigation.

18 USC 793(g): Aileen Cannon’s Order Would Not Forestall Flipping Trump’s Custodian of Records

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Donald Trump’s lawyers (including the one who failed to understand Trump was exposed to 18 USC 793 and who subsequently made himself a witness in the investigation) are cultivating the belief that they’ve succeeded in stalling the investigation into their client’s efforts to keep highly classified documents in his office and storage closet.

Perhaps they have. I don’t know what will happen. Though I know their track record of predicting what DOJ will do, thus far, has been piss-poor.

What I do know is that nothing would prevent DOJ from interviewing — or even flipping — the Custodian of Records who used to be one of Trump’s lawyers in this matter.

DOJ’s motion for a stay explicitly states that Judge Aileen Cannon’s injunction against using the classified documents seized from Donald Trump for investigative purposes would not shut down the investigation. It lays out several things her injunction would not prohibit.

To be sure, the Court did not enjoin the criminal investigation altogether. For example, the government does not understand the Court’s injunction against the government’s review and use of seized materials for criminal investigative purposes to prevent it from questioning witnesses and obtaining evidence about issues such as how classified records in general were moved from the White House, how they were subsequently stored, and what steps Plaintiff and his representatives took in response to the May 11, 2022 grand jury subpoena. The government also does not understand the Order to bar it from asking witnesses about any recollections they may have of classified records, so long as the government does not use the content of seized classified records to question witnesses (which the Order appears to prohibit).

DOJ maintains that Cannon’s order does not prevent them from questioning witnesses or otherwise obtaining evidence about:

  • How classified records were moved from the White House to Trump properties
  • How classified records were stored after they were removed from the White House
  • What steps Trump and others took in response to the May 11, 2022 grand jury subpoena
  • Recollections about classified records not relying on those seized on August 8

One person who would know a good deal about these matters, and might have an interest in being rather forthcoming about them if she were interested in minimizing her potential legal exposure, is Trump’s Custodian of Records.

By title, at least, that person would know how classified documents were stored — in Mar-a-Lago and any other Trump properties — after they were removed from the White House. And few people would know more about what steps Trump “and his representatives took in response to the May 11, 2022 grand jury subpoena” than one of those two representatives, the one who signed a declaration certifying that:

Based upon the information that has been provided to me, I am authorized to certify, on behalf of the Office of Donald J. Trump, the following:

a. A diligent search was conducted of the boxes that were moved from the White House to Florida;

b. This search was conducted after receipt of the subpoena, in order to locate any and all documents that are responsive to the subpoena;

c. Any and all responsive documents accompany this certification; and

d. No copy, written notation, or reproduction of any kind was retained as to any responsive document.

I swear or affirm that the above statements are true and correct to the best of my knowledge.

In fact, that Custodian of Records might have real concern she faced legal exposure for one or more crime tied to lying to the FBI:

And all that’s assuming the Custodian of Records isn’t one of the people who shows up on video surveillance moving boxes in and out of the storage room before the “diligent search was conducted” of those boxes.

If the Custodian of Records does show up on that video surveillance, than she might face legal exposure to:

If the Custodian of Records conspired to withhold 103 classified documents, of which 18 were classified Top Secret or above, that Custodian of Records might decide she really wanted to limit her liability in that potentially draconian obstruction-plus-Espionage legal exposure.

All the more so if the Custodian of Records believed she might also have exposure to charges under 18 USC 1512(c)(2) and 18 USC 1512(k) — each of which carries up to a twenty year sentence — for involvement in an attempt to prevent the January 6 2021 vote certification and recognized that information about such activities was of value to other ongoing criminal investigations.

NYT, in an otherwise bizarre story claiming the following in its lead paragraph…

A dark joke has begun circulating among lawyers following the many legal travails of former President Donald J. Trump: MAGA actually stands for “making attorneys get attorneys.”

… revealed this piece of news:

Ms. [Christina] Bobb recently retained a lawyer, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Being Trump’s lawyer — being Trump’s associate generally — seems to be a non-stop game of prisoner’s dilemma, a constant weighing of whether he’ll sell you out or provide means to loot the country with impunity.

Years ago, when Trump was President, that prisoner’s dilemma turned out to be pretty easy. He would pardon anyone who lied to keep him out of trouble. So no matter how grave your legal exposure, your real criminal exposure was just a few years (and that’s before Billy Barr started selectively freeing Trump associates under COVID release programs).

But Trump is not President anymore, and short of successful civil war, even in the rosiest possible scenario would not become President again until 2025. In fact, Trump’s own legal problems and his success shutting down women’s access to abortion even makes more immediate potential relief — in the form of a House majority that could undermine DOJ’s ongoing investigations — far less of a sure thing.

Trump’s success at stalling access to classified documents seized on August 8 — and his current lawyers’ rosy prediction they’ve delayed such access until Republicans might win one house of Congress — certainly would be part of that prisoner’s dilemma. After all, until such time as DOJ were able to use 18 Top Secret documents in an Espionage Act indictment, the Custodian of Records probably couldn’t be charged for 18 USC 793(g).

But as I’ve noted before, the Espionage Act was written to dramatically alter these kinds of prisoner’s dilemmas, both because affirmative knowledge of stolen classified documents is enough to reach criminal exposure, and because the conspiracy prong of the statute exposes co-conspirators — even ones who don’t share the same motive as the person who actually possesses a cache of stolen classified documents — to the same stiff punishment as the people who actually possess those documents.

So a smart student of prisoner’s dilemmas might understand that it doesn’t pay to wait to see how Trump’s current efforts at delay work out.

One thing’s clear though: DOJ doesn’t intend to entirely halt the investigation into violations of the Espionage Act and obstruction. Indeed, they have a fair amount of leeway to pursue obstruction charges while Aileen Cannon delays the other part of the investigation. And they have described next steps to include obtaining information uniquely available to Trump’s Custodian of Records.

Go here for emptywheel’s other coverage of Trump’s stolen documents and related resources.