Alina Habba, a lawyer for Donald Trump, said that the FBI raid on the former president was an attempt by the Justice Department to pull off a “October surprise.” She even made fun of the federal judge acting as the case’s “special master.”
Judge Raymond Dearie “showed a little bit of white gloves, which makes me worried when you’re not ready to delve into the weeds on this,” the attorney from Bedminister, New Jersey, said.
She argued that she was not yet “ready to judge him.”
She claimed that the Justice Department was conducting a “political” probe with an eye on the elections in November, despite the fact that Trump’s legal team had complained about the inquiry’s speed and wanted to extend the timeline into that month.
Rob Schmitt, a Newsmax journalist, posed the question to her and said that one of two suggestions made by Trump’s legal team was Judge Dearie. Habba is not involved in this specific case.
It “turned out to be a horrible option,” Schmitt added, calling it “a decision taken by someone in the Trump campaign [who] wanted this unique master.”
I’m not yet aware of it. When they get a case that is really political, judges are put under a great deal of strain, Habba remarked.
“Keep in mind that these judges are people. They are reluctant to appear in the media. Some of them simply wish to follow case law, while others do not. And some of them seem tougher when they aren’t necessary,” she said.
She also addressed Dearie’s argument that, if Trump’s attorneys wish to assert that he declassified the papers, they should be required to provide proof of that fact.
The judge’s decision to “not look at confidential materials” was described by Habba as “a bit complicated” and “surprising.”
It surprised her that he refused to really look at the confidential materials, which was the whole point of having a specialist master, she remarked.
After a different federal judge in Florida, Aileen Cannon, rejected the government’s request to isolate papers marked “classified” from those being looked through by the special master, the DOJ filed an appeal with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
They are in a panic, Habba remarked.
“This is what takes place. The DOJ is not intended to act in this manner. The FBI is not supposed to act in this way. However, it is what I believe is taking place.
Because November is quickly approaching and this is what we like to refer to as an October surprise that we’ve seen before, the Department of Justice has now filed this bizarre raid while claiming it’s all criminal activity, she added.
She was alluding to the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago on August 8. That followed a year of communication between Trump’s staff and representatives of the National Archives. 15 crates of material were returned by Trump to the government in January 2022. In May, a grand jury issued a demand for records. In June, a DOJ representative gathered further information. The FBI then grabbed more boxes for the search.
According to the DOJ, the FBI discovered around 100 secret papers during the search, bringing the total number of classified materials from Trump’s Florida golf club to roughly 300.
Habba’s remarks follow Dearie’s Tuesday grilling of a group of four of his lawyers in a Brooklyn courtroom over their failure to provide evidence to support allegations that he declassified documents after leaving office.
In a tense court session in Brooklyn on Tuesday, Judge Raymond Dearie said, “You can’t have your cake and eat it too.” The former president’s legal team has consistently failed to provide evidence to support the allegations.
Dearie has the responsibility of going through a large collection of government papers, some of which had classified material and were taken from Mar-a-Lago by FBI investigators.
He was sharply interrogating Trump’s legal team on if they had any proof to support the former president’s ongoing claims that he had declassified information after leaving the White House.
His probing queries came as the Justice Department and Trump’s attorneys tried to figure out how to go through boxes of federal documents that were kept at Trump’s club after he left office.
According to some legal experts, Trump might still be in legal trouble even if he declassified all the information that has been discovered since the government is looking into who has access to and how it is handled, which could apply even if the information wasn’t classified.
Jim Trusty, a lawyer for Trump, once said that until they had a chance to analyse the records, they were “not in a position” to tell if Trump had declassified them.
He has filed a lawsuit, Dearie chided.
Dearie said that he would believe the paper was tagged if Trump’s attorneys did not provide any supporting documentation.
I’m left with a prima facie case of secret papers, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s the end of it, he said, if the government provides me with prima facie proof that these are classified documents and you don’t forward any claim of declassification.