'Dangerous motion': Expert shows how Trump's 'irrelevant filing' could hurt docs case
January 17, 2024
Former President Donald Trump has filed a request in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case for a massive trove of information and documents from the Biden administration that legal experts have said is well beyond what a normal defendant asks for in these types of cases.
Ultimately, the request is ridiculous, argued former federal prosecutor Harry Litman on MSNBC — but it just might work, because of far-right Judge Aileen Cannon's track record of taking his side.
"Harry, your reaction to these requests, because Trump's lawyers are also asking for info on prosecutors that have charged Trump in Georgia and for more information on the lead prosecutor in the election interference case," said anchor Alicia Menendez.
"It's just classic Trumping," said Litman. "He needs to get personal. He's doing this in the political arena with Nikki Haley as he sees her as a possible threat. So, what he's saying is, you know, some kind of bias, some kind of conspiracy, look at the indictment. The indictment says there were documents. They were classified. That's a fact. They have national defense information. That's a fact. He took them.
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"It is perfectly irrelevant, almost certainly false, but more important, perfectly irrelevant whether or not anybody in the phalanx of the FBI had it in for him or not," Litman continued. "It's a dangerous motion, however, because Judge Cannon has shown a propensity to give him a lot of rope, and it would be a ton of delay, because what he's asking for is all this discovery, as you point out, including some information that the DOJ would be loath to or maybe even forbidden to turn over."
"That creates a separate skirmish in and of itself that eats up a month or more, and it's really all about irrelevant stuff that I don't think Judge Chutkan or Judge McAfee or Judge Kaplan would stand for for a minute, but Judge Cannon might," added Litman.
Watch the video below or at the link here.
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