But in the meantime, the government tried a new approach to convince Cannon to rethink her recent decision.

Imagine that someone allegedly stole a sack of diamonds from a jewelry shop and then stashed the gems in junk drawers around their house. The cops raid the place, take away everything in the drawers where they find stolen diamonds, and spend two weeks separating them from the junk. Then a judge comes along and says that the big issue in the case isn’t the stolen diamonds but that the cops still have some of the alleged thief’s personal belongings. She halts the heist investigation until an outside expert can sort the gems from the junk. The government thinks the judge’s decision is absurd — no other suspect has received this special treatment — but they offer the judge a compromise: let us keep all of the diamonds, and we’ll return all of the alleged thief’s junk, even a few cheap watches that they think he might have swiped from the store.

In a 21-page filing yesterday, that is essentially the deal DOJ offered Cannon: The government would get to hold onto and continue to use the 100 classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago, material that Justice lawyers noted “indisputably belong to the government, not Plaintiff,” and they’ll give DONALD TRUMP “copies of all unclassified documents recovered during the search — both personal records and government records” and return Trump’s “personal items that were not commingled with classified records.” (The details of that plan will be spelled out in a filing today.)

DOJ offered Cannon three arguments for why she should accept the deal:

1. If she doesn’t, DOJ will prevail in its appeal anyway, because no court could possibly conclude that Trump owns the 100 classified records, has a right to have them back or has any attorney-client or executive privilege claims that would prevent prosecutors from using them in their criminal investigation.

2. The judge’s order has threatened national security. The court’s ban on DOJ’s use of the records, the government said, has stymied the intelligence community’s “national security risk assessment of the possible unauthorized disclosure of the classified records and any harm that may have resulted” because the intelligence assessment is “inextricably linked” with the FBI’s criminal investigation. Cannon herself said she wanted that review to continue but the IC can’t do it without the cooperation of the FBI, which she seemingly banned from the process. The key here is that the IC needs to know if the classified documents “may have been accessed by others and compromised,” which is precisely what the FBI is investigating in its criminal probe.

3. Excluding the 100 classified documents from the special master process will cause no harm to Trump.

The offer to Cannon presents her with a difficult choice. Her opinion was criticized for failing to fully grapple with the government’s argument that Trump doesn’t own the classified documents he stored at Mar-a-Lago. She lumped all of the seized property together as potentially Trump’s, and gave enormous weight to the argument that any of the documents seized could potentially be subject to privilege claims. She was essentially saying that DOJ couldn’t be trusted and that the special master should sort things out.

From what we’ve seen so far, our bet is that Cannon doesn’t accept this deal outright. Doing so would require her to reverse arguments that she’s already made about potential privilege claims and her (widely criticized) position that Trump could suffer irreparable harm from the investigation itself.

What might be more difficult for her to ignore is the government’s new argument (number two above) that her order has halted the IC’s review and thus has serious national security implications.

Either way, this is an aggressive move by Justice. They are going forward with an appeal, despite the risk of cementing an awful precedent or getting an even worse ruling from an appeals court dominated by Trump appointees, and they are daring Cannon to double down on arguments that legal analysts on the right and left have scoffed at."

"A congressional briefing to get a damage assessment of the classified documents seized during the Mar-a-Lago raid is on hold after Judge Cannon granted Trump’s request last week to appoint a special master. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA) told CBS “Face the Nation” moderate Margaret Brennan that “there is some question because of the special master appointment by the judge in Florida whether they can brief at this point.” “We need clarification on that from that judge as quickly as possible because it is essential that the intelligence community, leadership at least, get a briefing of the damage assessment,” he said. Rema Rehman reports for The Hill. 

Judge Cannon’s decision to grant Trump’s request for a special master to review documents seized from Mar-a-Lago, has placed her under increased scrutiny, raising questions about the appointment of judges with limited experience. Former senator Russ Feingold — who leads the liberal American Constitution Society, which closely tracks judicial nominations — said Trump and his Republican allies in the Senate sought out judicial nominees like Cannon, showing an “overwhelming preference” for individuals often lacking the experience “previously considered necessary to sit on the bench.” “We’re now seeing the impact of this, with an alarming disregard of the rule of law by some,” he said in a statement. Ann E. Marimow provides analysis for the Washington Post. "

nolaegghead said:

fishlessman said:

lousubcap said:

If the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack makes a criminal referral for Trump it should be made unanimously, panel member Rep. Adam Schiff has said. "We operate with a high degree of consensus and unanimity," the California Democrat said yesterday. "It will be certainly, I think, my recommendation, my feeling, that we should make referrals, but we will get to a decision as a committee, and we will all abide by that decision, and I will join our committee members if they feel differently." It has previously been reported that whilst the committee is in wide agreement that Trump committed a crime in relation to the Jan. 6 attack, they are split on whether to make a criminal referral to the Justice Department. Daniella Diaz and Devan Cole report for CNN. 

maybe this is an out clause, not so sure what would happen if he is found guilty and sent off to jail.  i really dont want to find out if jan 6 was just a trailer for things to come

I would probably celebrate for a week straight then buy more guns and ammo because a very large number of “good guys with guns” will be turning into terrorists.