Judging Freedom - Trump files motion over FBI search

Episode Date: August 22, 2022

Trump files motion over Mar-a-Lago search https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-motion-mar-a-lago-search/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab8a&linkId=178250338 #Trump #search #FBISee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, August 22nd, 2022. It's about 6.15 in the evening on the east coast of the United States, former President Donald Trump dispatched lawyers to file sort of a complaint, sort of a motion, it's hard to tell from reading it, I've read it twice, arguing that the examination of the documents that the FBI seized from his home should be ceased and should only be conducted under the supervision of a special master, an outside lawyer, often a retired or a former judge, but a neutral person, not in the government, who will look at the documents and decide, well, this is personal and it shouldn't have been taken. This is attorney-client privilege and it shouldn't have been taken.

This is executive privilege and it shouldn't have been taken. This the government can analyze. Unfortunately, this is too little too late. The government has had the documents it seized from Trump's home for two weeks now. And knowing the way the government operates in cases like this, especially when the government alleges that these documents are top secret, it is a near certainty that they have all been examined. So Trump's wish to put this intermediary in there comes two weeks too late. This should have been filed last Monday. It could even have been filed while the search was going on. I don't think Trump had assembled his legal team by then. Unfortunately as well, the filing itself is

seriously deficient. The document, which is signed by three lawyers, makes a lot of allegations about things that happened in Trump's home. Now, when you make an allegation in a document and you're the lawyer, unless you witness these things happening, you need to footnote what your source is. And that source has to be an affidavit of someone who saw it. There's no such affidavit there. So if the lawyer says in a pleading, the light wasn't green, it was red. Well, the lawyer himself didn't see the red light. He has to submit an affidavit from someone who will say, yeah, I was there at such and such a time, and the light was red. Same thing with the allegations made about what the feds did and didn't do and what they said and didn't say

during the course of the failed negotiations leading up to the execution of the search warrant. There's simply no affidavit there to confirm what the Trump lawyers said happened. So this is a seriously deficient filing. I don't know what the judge is going to do with this. Most judges would reject it and say, follow the rules, which say when you make an allegation of fact, not of law, of fact, you have to have a source for the fact, and it can't be you, because you can't be a lawyer and a witness in the same case. This is not nitpicking. This is the way lawyers and judges view things.

You have to follow the rules, and the rules require these affidavits. But if you want to have some fun, Google this thing and read it because half of it sounds like it was dictated by the former president. It is filled with his bombast, which he's absolutely entitled to do and which resonates well with a lot of his base. But it's not a legal argument and it doesn't resonate well with judges, even judges he appointed. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.