DOJ 'has the upper hand' no matter who is selected as Trump's special master: legal expert
Appearing on MSNBC on Saturday morning, former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade made the case that no matter who is selected as the special master to review documents Donald Trump hid at Mar-a-Lago, the former president will likely lose his battle to keep the DOJ from using them as part of their government obstruction investigation.
Taking a break from MSNBC's coverage of the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, host Ali Velshi spoke with the legal analyst about the submission of candidates for special master handed to Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon late Friday.
"Barbara, you and I talked about this a few weeks ago there was some sense that this concept of a special master, someone independent and removed from the Department of Justice, someone with legal expertise, probably the right classification access, they look at these things and determine what is good and what is bad." host Velshi began. "Ultimately, is this anything more than a tactic for the Trump team? Is there some sense that this special master actually has an impact on the outcome of this investigation?"
"In the end, probably not," the legal analyst quickly replied. "You know, I can't imagine any special master is going to say that the government is not allowed to look at the classified documents. These are documents created by agencies in the intelligence community. I can't imagine any world in which those are privileged and stay outside of the review of the government."
"You know maybe attorney-client privilege documents. they have already been segregated from the investigative team by a filter team at the FBI," she added. "I am sure that a special master would pull those back."
"There is some debate about executive privilege. Even that, I think the government has the upper hand on that argument," she elaborated. "The documents at the heart of this case, the classified documents revealing national defense information? Those are going over to the government no matter who looks at them."
"Eventually, the government is getting those documents -- they are gonna be part of this case," she added.
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