‘TIME AND PLACE’

Team Trump Pushes Back on Special Master’s Declassification Question

Acknowledging that an indictment could be in the cards, Trump’s lawyers said disclosing specific details might compromise a future criminal defense.

Attorneys for former President Donald Trump on Monday night signaled they would resist a request to disclose further information on the so-called declassification of records recovered from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in recent months, saying there would be a later “time and place” for such details. In a response to a “draft plan” circulated by U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie, the special master appointed to examine the documents, Trump’s team asked that he kill the part that asks Trump to provide details on the papers he claims to have declassified. They objected to making Trump “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,” essentially airing concerns that the disclosures might need to be saved as part of a defense against future criminal charges. Last week, Judge Aileen Cannon ordered that the special master review be completed by the end of November, putting pressure on Dearie to finish appraising roughly 11,000 records in about 10 weeks.