OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former Attorney General William Barr is continuing his war of words with his old boss, Donald Trump.
In an interview with Fox News last week, Barr commented on the ongoing controversy surrounding allegedly classified documents the FBI seized from the former president last month during a raid on his Mar-a-Lago estate.
He said that if Trump did indeed have a standing order to declassify everything that he took with him as he left the White House, that would amount to a worse abuse than actually taking the documents.
“The whole idea of a special master is a bit of a red herring. The only documents that have been taken, it seems to me, that there’s a legitimate concern about keeping away from the government and insulating the government from, would be documents relating to his private lawyer communications, him as an individual and as outside lawyers,” Barr told host John Roberts.
“If there’s stuff like that, fine. Identify it. There doesn’t appear to be much of it. I’m not sure you need a special master to identify it,” he continued.
“But what people are missing are all the other documents taken. Even if they claim to be executive privilege [they] belong to the government because they are government records even if they are classified, even if they are subject to executive privilege, they still belong to the government and they go to the archives,” he added.
Roberts responded: “He claims that he had a standing order to declassify anything he took out of the White House when he left in January 2021. Is there any legitimate reason for those materials to be in the president, former president’s possession?”
“No, I can’t think of a legitimate reason why they should have been could be taken out of the government, away from the government if they’re classified. I frankly am skeptical of this claim that ‘I declassified everything,’ you know,” Barr replied.
“Frankly, I think it’s highly improbable. And second, if, in fact, he sort of stood over scores of boxes, not really knowing what was in them, and said, ‘I hereby declassify everything in here’ — that would be such an abuse, and that shows such recklessness that it’s almost worse than taking the documents,” the former AG noted further.
In fact, a federal judge granted Trump’s request to assign a special master on Monday.
U.S. District Judge from the Southern District of Florida Judge Aileen M. Cannon ordered that an independent third-party be appointed to “review the seized property, manage assertions of privilege and make recommendations thereon, and evaluate claims for return of property.”
“The Court hereby authorizes the appointment of a special master to review the seized property for personal items and documents and potentially privileged material subject to claims of attorney- client and/or executive privilege,” the order states.
“Furthermore, in natural conjunction with that appointment, and consistent with the value and sequence of special master procedures, the Court also temporarily enjoins the Government from reviewing and using the seized materials for investigative purposes pending completion of the special master’s review or further Court order,” it adds.
The order, though, “shall not impede the classification review and/or intelligence assessment by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (“ODNI”) as described in the Government’s Notice of Receipt of Preliminary Order.”
Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy appeared on Fox News on Monday and said that the judge’s decision was “potentially explosive” if it led to an executive privilege claim.
“It’s a big win for the Trump team and a potentially explosive ruling if it holds. I would imagine it’s important enough that the government will appeal this immediately,” he said on “Fox News Live.”
“In a nutshell, what happened here is the Justice Department assumed that Trump only had attorney-client privilege, that he did not have executive privilege, or at least to the limited extent that as a former president he maintains executive privilege, it can’t be asserted against the executive branch itself,” the former prosecutor said.
“It’s one thing for the government to have that theory, I think it actually may be a sound theory. The problem is it’s not 100% settled, so I thought it was incumbent on them to get a ruling from the court on that question before they hauled off did what they did, which was have the privilege team go through all the seized documents assuming that Trump only had attorney-client privilege and then allowing all of the potentially executive privileged documents to go to the prosecution team,” he said.
“If it turned out they are privileged, that could taint the prosecutors who reviewed them and it could also taint their investigation because they are now conducting an investigation,” he argued.
