Trump has been flapping his mouth about declassifying the documents for some time on social media and during interviews. At no point, however, have Trump’s lawyers ever asserted in court that Trump declassified any documents. Yet, if the documents were not declassified, then there is no possible way that Trump could claim any justification for having them. He cannot have classified documents.

Thus, smartly, the special master in Trump’s case, Judge Raymond Dearie, asked the Trump team for all evidence that Trump declassified the documents upfront. And, well, ummmm, Trump’s lawyers don’t want to do it because it “might” impact a possible defense down the road. Actually, it “might impact” whether Dearie even needs to review the classified documents or whether he just gives them over to the DOJ:

“Otherwise, the Special Master process will have forced the Plaintiff to fully and specifically disclose a defense to the merits of any subsequent indictment without such a requirement being evident in the District Court’s order.”

Dearie isn’t going to put up with such nonsense, according to Andrew Weismann, from Rawstory:

Dearie’s response to Trump saying it can’t answer as it’s a possible trial defense is going to be: either you are saying it now, or you are not. If you do not now want to claim your declassified docs that is fine and your choice, but then the docs are not being returned to you.

This is going to be a problem for Trump. If the documents are classified, he cannot have them, period, end of story. So he now has Dearie asking for evidence that they were declassified, and Trump is going to have the 11th Circuit ruling on a motion with no evidence that the documents were declassified. As DOJ points out in its brief, the Trump attorneys have been very “vague” about the whole declassification thing. It worked in front of Cannon. It’s not going to work in front of Dearie and probably won’t work in front of the 11th Circuit. As DOJ wrote to the 11th Circuit:

“Plaintiff principally seeks to raise questions about the classification status of the records and their categorization under the Presidential Records Act (‘PRA’). But plaintiff does not actually assert — much less provide any evidence — that any of the seized records bearing classification markings have been declassified.

That’s a problem, and it sounds like Dearie isn’t going to put up with it. Yes, expect Trump’s lawyers to start trashing the special master that they offered as a choice.

One of our favorite follows on Twitter, Mueller She Wrote, who has almost always been dead-on with regards to Trump, Russia, and his many legal issues, had quite an interesting thread just earlier:

THREAD: if I was Donald (dry heave sound), and my goal was to DELAY, I would recommend a special master that the DoJ would be cool with. 1/

— Mueller, She Wrote (@MuellerSheWrote) September 20, 2022

Then I’d make sure the judge in my pocket changed the usual language of the appointment to allow herself to fire the special master for any reason (usually it’s just for DELAYING). 2/

— Mueller, She Wrote (@MuellerSheWrote) September 20, 2022

Then I’d refuse to cooperate with the special master to muddy the waters, make him seem like part of the deep state for being so demanding, and strong him along for weeks. 3/

— Mueller, She Wrote (@MuellerSheWrote) September 20, 2022

Then I’d have my judge friend fire that special master and start the whole thing over again. Fortunately, the 11th circuit could put this all to bed. So could the small concessions Cannon made for investigations and an indictment would end it. END/

— Mueller, She Wrote (@MuellerSheWrote) September 20, 2022

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[email protected], @JasonMiciak, with Nicole Hickman