Trump stuck in 'a pattern of futility' as his old legal tricks are 'running out of road': analysis

A string of legal defeats has complicated Donald Trump's efforts to delay or avoid accountability over his storing of classified materials at Mar-a-Lago, argues CNN reporter Stephen Collinson.

"Taken together, this pattern of futility is reinforcing a principle that cuts to the core of the American legal and political systems – that Trump, even as an ex-president, is not entitled to any more deference under the law than any regular citizen," CNN's analysis stated.

In some instances, Trump seems to think he's allowed protections that were given to him while he was in office even though he's no longer president -- which might be the motivation for the early launch of his campaign, Collinson writes.

“Donald Trump’s approach any time he is being investigated for anything is to delay and to use the courts as a mechanism to delay – and for him it works because he is a former president. We are all tangled up in questions about can you prosecute or indict somebody who is running for president,” Connecticut Democratic Rep. Jim Himes, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN. “It doesn’t work in the courts, though. He loses in the courts almost all the time,” Himes told CNN’s Alex Marquardt on “The Situation Room.”

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As CNN points out, a lower court this Thursday invalidated a ruling by Trump-appointed judge, Aileen Cannon, who appointed a third-party official known as a “special master” to sift through documents seized from Mar-a-Lago, saying that Cannon shouldn't have intervened in the case because it did not meet the standard of extraordinary circumstances that merit interventions in Justice Department investigations.

“It is indeed extraordinary for a warrant to be executed at the home of a former president – but not in a way that affects our legal analysis or otherwise gives the judiciary license to interfere in an ongoing investigation,” the court said.

Read the full analysis over at CNN.