On Tuesday's edition of MSNBC's "The ReidOut," former prosecutor Charles Coleman argued that former President Donald Trump's legal team is out of its depth in their efforts to stall the Justice Department's review of potentially classified documents seized by the FBI in the search of Mar-a-Lago.
This comes as Trump's demand for a special master to review the documents is considered by a federal judge in Florida — herself a Trump appointee — who has signaled she is open to the idea.
"Can any other American, any other person in your career, in your illustrious career as a prosecutor, ever use this much stalling and delay to keep one step ahead of the law?" asked anchor Joy Reid.
"Few have been successful," said Coleman, but he added, "The DOJ and the FBI have already indicated that they have gone through the documents. Essentially Merrick Garland and the DOJ are playing chess. Donald Trump and his legal team, they are playing Uno, and that's — that's the only way I can explain it, because at this point, they have taken away every reason that they would need to have a special master. So by saying, look, we identified attorney-client privilege, identified things that need to be returned to the National Archives, and identified material that's so sensitive and so private and so top secret in nature that it has to be returned to the actual government and cannot be in public purview, they have made the issue of a special master actually moot."
Part of the issue, though, Coleman noted, is that Trump is one of the few individuals in America with the financial resources to actually duke it out with federal investigators in court in this manner.
"To your question, no, this would normally not be successful, quite frankly because most normal folks don't have the resources that are going to allow them this type of delay because it just gets so costly. And secondly, most judges, in the interest of judicial economy and moving their own docket and calendar, are not going to put up with this, but in this case, as you pointed out, we're dealing with a Trump appointee, so anything goes."
Watch below:
Charles Coleman says Trump's lawyers are "playing Uno" in their fight with the FBIwww.youtube.com
