Trump’s former Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur says the special master reviewing the Mar-a-Lago documents was causing the former president’s legal team to ‘shut up or shut up’ regarding the allegations of planted materials and declassified documents.
Isgur, a political commentator, told ABC’s ‘This Week’ on Sunday that special counsel Judge Raymond Dearie was “really taking the case” before Trump’s lawyers, who declined to provide evidence. in support of their client’s claims that he declassified documents found last month at his home. Residence Mar-a-Lago.
Dearie is “telling Trump’s lawyers that they have to tell the court, in a court filing that could be punishable, if the president ever declassified anything,” she said. “If they really believe and have evidence that anything has ever been planted at Mar-a-Lago. All the things Trump says publicly, the judge says shut up or shut up.
The FBI has seized about 100 documents from Trump’s estate in Florida as part of an investigation into the former president’s alleged mishandling of top secret and classified documents and allegations that he violated the law on spying.
Last week, Dearie told a hearing that while Trump’s legal team had not provided evidence rebutting the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) claim that the documents were classified, “as far as concerns me, that’s the end.”
Trump criticized the FBI’s research as politically motivated, and last week argued that the president could declassify documents just by “thinking about it”.
He also accused the FBI of planting evidence, another claim for which Dearie asked him to produce evidence in court.
Dearie was appointed after the former president filed a lawsuit in a Florida court asking a special master to sift through the documents and determine whether any are protected by executive or attorney-client privilege.
Judge Aileen Cannon approved his request and chose Dearie, one of two candidates for the special petty officer position that Trump had proposed.
Isgur said Sunday it was “fascinating” that the Trump team chose Dearie, noting that he had served on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and had “dealt with so much classified material.”
