I’m enjoying reading the decision.
Plaintiff suggests that he may have declassified these docu- ments when he was President. But the record contains no evidence that any of these records were declassified. And before the special master, Plaintiff resisted providing any evidence that he had declas- sified any of these documents. See Doc. No. 97 at 2–3., Sept. 19, 2022, letter from James M. Trusty, et al., to Special Master Ray- mond J. Dearie, at 2–3. In any event, at least for these purposes, the declassification argument is a red herring because declassifying an official document would not change its content or render it per- sonal. So even if we assumed that Plaintiff did declassify some or all of the documents, that would not explain why he has a personal interest in them.
This factor—the Plaintiff’s personal interest (or lack thereof) in the documents—also weighs against exercising jurisdiction.
Looks like Judge Cannon is an exception, not the norm. Thank god. They rip her pretty well here too, in legalese.
I’m so glad they directly called his argument about declassification a red herring. That’s what it is, and it needed to be called that instead of looking for reasons to placate Trump. I’m willing to grant the judge the benefit of a doubt that maybe she just wanted this off her plate and to stay out of Trump’s warpath, but who knows.
Either way, this whole process won’t buy Trump much time.
apple.news
