Trump's 'garbled' Supreme Court filing is 'riddled with absurd claims': MSNBC legal analyst
Donald Trump's appeal to the Supreme Court seeking to keep White House Jan. 6 records secret reads as though it's written in "garbled Russian," according to former acting U.S. solicitor general Neal Katyal.
The former president's lawyers on Thursday asked the high court to overturn a unanimous decision from the D.C. appeals court rejecting his claims of executive privilege.
Katyal said he believes the Supreme Court is unlikely to take up the case, meaning the lower court's decision will stand, forcing Trump to turn over the documents.
"It's a really lousy filing, and that's putting it charitably,," Katyal said of Trump's appeal on Thursday night, adding that the Supreme Court typically receives 8,000 to 10,000 petitions each year, but only hears about 65 cases.
"The Supreme Court is really the big leagues," Katyal said. "You can't afford a false move when you're making a filing to the Supreme Court, but the document that Trump filed today is written frankly by lawyers who appear not ready for this kind of filing. It's riddled with loose language and absurd claims. It's kind of surprising to me that Trump couldn't get a Supreme Court lawyer to file this document for him. He is a former president and all that, but then it's not that surprising when you look at his actual claims."
Katyal added that the filing makes no new arguments, but does contain some fresh rhetoric alleging that Trump is "more than an ordinary citizen."
"The document pretends essentially that he's still president, which maybe these folks who filed this believe, but he's not the president, and the thing about living in a democracy is that once you're out of office, you're an ordinary person," Katyal said.
Noting that Trump's filing came on the last possible day for an appeal, Katyal said: "That delay tells you all you need to know about what this document that they filed today at the Supreme Court is about. It's just about trying to stall this thing out as long as they can."
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