The only power previous guy has is unlike Mandrake the Magician’s, Trump only has the classifying power to cloud squirrels’ minds. The bigger story will be Christina Bobb’s presence not only at the FBI “raid” but in the J6 “command center.
In a new filing opposing an attempt by Trump to have the Supreme Court intervene in the Mar-a-Lago case, the DOJ thoroughly demolishes that logic, and does so in two parts: It doesn’t matter if the records are declassified, the government says, because either way they belong to the Executive Branch. Turning the screw a bit more, the government notes that Trump himself refuses to say in court that he “in fact declassified any documents — much less supported such a representation with competent evidence.”
Trump asked the Supreme Court last week to intervene in the case, as it applies to classified records. The former President wants the high court to allow U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie for the Eastern District of New York, the special master appointed in the case, to be allowed to review classified records seized by the government.
It’s a narrower request than the ones Trump has been making, but no less radical: It could allow Trump’s attorneys to review highly secret records that may end up being used to charge him.
The DOJ called Trump’s claims around declassification “irrelevant.”
Some 100 records seized in search, the government said, have markings indicating that they’re classified.
“The classification markings establish on the face of the documents that they are not applicant’s personal property,” wrote Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, before citing the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in calling the question a “red herring.”
The question of whether the records themselves were classified has partially been an example of Trump trying to muddy the waters. Though their sensitivity matters in the sense of potential damage to national security, and may play a potential role in a future prosecution, the question of possession that Trump has raised since the FBI searches at Mar-a-Lago comes down to his status as a former, not a current, president.
No matter how much he may wish it otherwise, Trump can’t change that fact, the DOJ suggested. The Presidential Records Act mandates that records from his administration should have gone to the National Archives – classified or not.
talkingpointsmemo.com/...
In the past two years, Christina Bobb has emerged as one of his truest of true believers, embracing conspiracy theories with a fervor that has at times seemed over the top even to her colleagues, according to interviews with a dozen people who have worked with her over the past several years.
Ms. Bobb has not been shy about expressing her opinions on conservative news outlets, speaking expansively about the court-authorized F.B.I. search and her low opinion of those who executed it.
“I don’t believe that there was any classified material in there, though I’m sure the F.B.I. will say that there is,” she said in an interview with the conservative activist Dinesh D’Souza two days after the warrant was executed.
Another conservative activist, Mike Farris, asked if she was concerned by the Justice Department’s aggressive approach.
“I’m not too worried about it,” she replied. “They are all a bunch of cowards; they don’t have anything.”
Ms. Bobb was present in the pro-Trump “command center” at the Willard Hotel in Washington before the Capitol attack, along with Rudolph W. Giuliani and other Trump stalwarts.
She acted as Mr. Giuliani’s go-between with state officials in Arizona and helped fund-raise for a recount in Maricopa County that Republican leaders called a “sham.” She drafted a memo and participated in meetings to discuss a plan to appoint alternate slates of electors to reverse legitimate state election results. And Ms. Bobb created the computer file used to draft a proposal, never carried out, for Mr. Trump to issue an executive order for the federal government to seize voting machines.