Trump’s delay strategy quickly stalls because the special master’s ‘patience already ran out’: reporter

Donald Trump loves to stall out investigations with lengthy legal battles, but his effort to do that in the Mar-a-Lago documents case probably won't drag things out quite as long as he'd like.

District court judge Aileen Cannon granted the former president's request for a special master to examine the government documents seized at his Florida resort, apparently hoping that would drag out the process past the election or beyond, but NBC News reporter Tom Winter said that doesn't seem like it will work.

"Judge [Raymond] Dearie argued they haven't been able to see the documents because they're so highly classified and such closely-held secrets," Winter said. "When you look at it, the judge is keying in on this fact, that look, 'You brought the claim, it's up to you to prove it -- if not we're moving on,' and federal prosecutors late last night before the 11th Court of Appeals filed a motion leaning into this, saying they're continuing to argue they could be declassified, but, listen, they provided no documentation to back that up, and something that conservative lawyers are starting to key in on, as well. At this point, if there was a case to be made, they either have sworn declarations, they have something in writing, this would be the point where potentially they would make it. As you said, could reserve it for future arguments, but right now they're coming up short in the eyes of the judge."

Dearie, the court-appointed special master, doesn't appear to be willing to drag out the document review through the fall but instead seems to be planning a more aggressive schedule.

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"He's made it clear, and he still has to enter his scheduling order," Winter said. "Looks like instead of this waiting until after Thanksgiving, what we talked about this yesterday, just based on files we had, now it appears that the judge wants it wrapped up perhaps in the next four, five weeks or so, that the review could be completed. If any of the sides, in this case, it would be the Trump side bringing claims of privilege, he would be able to review that and go before the government and prosecutors, saying you have to fight over it, and then he would make his determinations and send them to Judge Cannon."

"At this point," Winter added, "if there's a delay tactic here, and they haven't said that overtly on the Trump side -- I know legal experts have said just what you did, that in fact this appears to be perhaps a delay tactic -- that delay tactic only is going to buy them barely a month."

Dearie has years of experience dealing with classified matters, so his review should be quick.

"You're talking about a judge, to your point, he worked on the FISA court, he's somebody who oversaw secretive legal filings that this country has, so when it comes to an issue of classification, I think he is somebody who's going to be well-versed in the topic, understanding these types of special programs that exist, very need-to-know information that he highlighted yesterday," Winter said. "He had a real reticence in even handing these documents over to the Trump team to review, noting the secrecy and the level of information that's contained in them."

"His patience already ran out, and he's moving on," Winter added. "He doesn't see a reason to look at these documents absent some sort filing from Trump's attorneys. I think, at this point, though, the sand is already through the hourglass as relates to Judge Dearie on this issue."

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