Last week, Trump's defense team asked Judge Cannon for an order re-establishing his SCIF so that he and his defense team could use it to review classified information related to his case.
Trump is seeking "special treatment that no other criminal defendant would receive and that is unsupported by law or precedent."
True.
"The proposed protective order requires that any discussion of classified information between Trump and his attorneys take place in a sensitive compartmented information facility (“SCIF”)"
Yep, and Trump has one of those.
Several times in Trump's motion they state that classified material will NOT be housed/stored in the SCIF and they are not seeking for it to be stored there.
From their motion:
Smith ain't wrong here. It is certainly an "accommodation that deviates from the normal course of cases involving classified discovery."
Government’s proposed protective order contains the following provisions:
"In the Government’s view, the particular SCIF(s) that can be used for such discussions should be determined by the CISO in consultation with the defense, and if necessary, the Court..."
CISO previously accredited Trump's SCIF. I wonder if Cannon will ask for their input?
"Trump continues to seek special treatment that no other criminal defendant would receive."
"In essence, he is asking to be the only defendant ever in a case involving classified information [] who would be able to discuss classified information in a private residence."
Yep. 😎
Smith goes on to talk about how many guests &events Mar-a-Lago has in an effort to make it seem less secure and a poor choice for a SCIF.
However, this was not an issue during Trump's Presidency, as MAL continued operating as a club with an accredited SCIF somewhere inside it.
Plus, MAL has lots of security, Trump has SS, and as Trump's motion states,
"a member of the prosecution’s trial team has visited Mar-a-Lago... and is therefore personally aware of the differences between President Trump’s residence and that of “any private citizen.”"
It doesn't need to be created. It already exist. It even received an almost $600k upgrade last year.
"as long as the classified information at issue—which includes a significant amount of SCI—is discussed in an accredited SCIF in compliance with Intelligence Community Directive (“ICD”) 705 and applicable laws and regulations, the Government defers to the CISO"
Nauta is on a case-by-case basis for his access to classified discovery.
"The classified discovery in this case goes well beyond the charged documents..."
"...the classified discovery will include other classified documents... brought from the WH to MAL, classified emails about highly classified briefings... and... classified witness statements..."
"For classified information, the burden is not on the Government to show why a defendant should not have access. Instead, the defendant, like anyone who accesses classified information, must have a demonstrable need to know it."
"The Government’s proposed protective order (1) provides sufficient flexibility for counsel for Defendant Trump to discuss with him in any SCIF authorized by the CISO..."
Good. Let's get the CISO to authorize/accredit Trump's MAL SCIF.
Thoughts:
I love this battle. It confirms the existence of the MAL SCIF, which many BELIEVED was there, but now we KNOW.
Several fmr Presidents have SCIFS at home too, and I think THAT is the primary point of all of this- cutting the template for future cases.
😎
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I've read the whole thing into a mic and that show will go LIVE tomorrow at 9:30am EST in all the usual places.
Please tell me more about the Bat Caves. 🦇
'The Special Counsel’s Office should be required to disclose all evidence relating to what the Office previously described to the Court as “temporary secure locations” at Mar-a-Lago, Bedminster, and Trump Tower and related SCIFs at “offsite locations.”'
In the past couple days, prosecutors have filed several dozen victim additional impact statements and submitted letters from the current execs of Alameda and FTX and other affiliated businesses. That letter from FTX calls bullshit on Sam's sentencing submission and how it characterizes the financials of FTX and the bankruptcy proceedings.
Defense counsel have filed letters accusing the prosecution of being mean, "hostile", their filings "disturbing" and "apocalyptic" as well as accusing them of violating Sam's 5th and 6th Amendment Rights.
They paint Sam as a well meaning, but misguided "brilliant" young man who fell victim to market forces and poor decision making.
This is a Non-Evidentiary hearing to discuss Trump's motions to dismiss based on Unconstitutional Vagueness and The Presidential Records Act, as well as replies to those motions.
These motions ONLY concern Counts 1-32 because those are the Willful Retention of National Defense Information charges.
It may last all day.
In the Unconstitutional Vagueness motion, Trump's counsel argues that Section 793 "unconstitutionally vague as applied to ...a former President operating within the framework of the Presidential Records Act (“PRA”), who
(1) acted as the ultimate Original Classification Authority based on Article II of the Constitution and under Executive Order 13526,
(2) has recourse to the executive privilege, and
(3) is entitled to immunity for his official acts."
Additionally, they argue that federal judges should not be trying to fix legislative "language chosen by elected officials"
and...
"Judicial efforts to “save” § 793(e) by attaching broad interpretations to a criminal statute in order to reach the conduct of defendants hauled into court by overzealous and politically motivated prosecutors is contrary to the Rule of Lenity. The Supreme Court recently applied this logic in three cases striking so-called “residual clauses” in the Armed Career Criminal Act, Immigration and Nationality Act, and 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). E.g., United States v. Davis, 139 S. Ct. 2319, 2323 (2019).
New indictment from Special Counsel David C. Weiss charging Alexander Smirnov, a Confidential Human Source for the FBI, with 1 count of False Statements and 1 count of Falsifying Records in a Federal Investigation.
"The US Justice Department said Wednesday that the FBI surreptitiously sent commands to hundreds of infected small office and home office routers to remove malware China state-sponsored hackers were using to wage attacks on critical infrastructure.
The routers—mainly Cisco and Netgear devices that had reached their end of life—were infected with what’s known as KV Botnet malware, Justice Department officials said. Chinese hackers from a group tracked as Volt Typhoon used the malware to wrangle the routers into a network they could control. Traffic passing between the hackers and the compromised devices was encrypted using a VPN module KV Botnet installed. From there, the campaign operators connected to the networks of US critical infrastructure organizations to establish posts that could be used in future cyberattacks. The arrangement caused traffic to appear as originating from US IP addresses with trustworthy reputations rather than ... in China."
Interesting that CYBERCOM is left out of this story and yet CYBERCOM Commander General Nakasone appeared alongside FBI Director Wray and CISA Director Easterly yesterday in a House Select Committee hearing that focused on cyber threats from China.