Even if there were attorney/client documents it still doesn’t mean Trump can steal government docs: legal expert

The world is awaiting the Justice Department's filing in response to Donald Trump's demand for a court-appointed person to sift through all of the documents the FBI took as part of a search warrant.

Speaking to MSNBC about the impending filing, David Laufman, former chief of the Department of Justice counterintelligence section, and Neal Katyal, former acting Solicitor General, both explained that the idea of a special master, in this case, is a little absurd given that the documents have already been sorted.

"There's always been an erratic nature to the president's litigiousness," said Laufman. "He's not always been represented by the most shrewd, strategic thinking attorneys. This is a spaghetti-thrown-against-the-wall attempt, really, to throw a monkey wrench in the government's ongoing criminal investigation and possibly into the U.S. intelligence community's review of the classified documents that were seized in Mar-a-Lago."

He said that there is a "bizarre disconnect" between what Trump asked for in the motion and what FBI/DOJ filter teams do.

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"So, I expect the Justice Department brief to hammer hard on the inapplicability merit of this case, this is about government records, classified records, other presidential records," Laufman continued. "It has nothing to do with protecting the candor of presidential communications with close advisers. These are federal records. And with regard to the attorney-client issue, they have done what they always do. They have corrected a privilege review team to identify potentially -- that's the word they used in their brief -- potentially attorney/client privilege detail and discuss it with attorneys on the privilege review team to decide whether it should be treated with privilege or to throw it over the wall to the investigative team."

Katyal agreed with Laufman's assessment, noting that for Trump "it's always about me, me, me. It's not about the country. It's not about national security. It's just about him and never about the law either."

When it comes to the legal team for Trump, Katyal said it's hard not to see the political pandering. The demand to appoint a special master is an example of that and "ultimately it's meaningless."

"Special masters are appointed at the outset of a search, not after the government's already gone through all the documents," he went on. "The Trump team waited almost three weeks to file their quest, and it's practically useless at this point because the department, the FBI's already gone through these materials. You can't put that toothpaste back in the tube. Second, the investigation here is about -- it's not about the contents of the individual memos that he stole. It's about the fact he stole them. So, even if you found some documents that might be protected by executive privilege, which is, I think, ludicrous, but even if so, that wouldn't be a defense to the fact that he took them."

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Even if he had executive privilege -- you still can't steal government property www.youtube.com