Special master calls for help in Trump Mar-a-Lago documents fight
Judge proposes $500 an hour for former magistrate to help review documents.
No, not that part.
U.S. District Court Judge Raymond Dearie...proposed Thursday that former Magistrate Judge James Orenstein help with the process.
That part. Dearie was proposed by 45th's lawyers, not DOJ, as special master.
“The undersigned has determined that the efficient administration of the Special Master’s duties requires the assistance of the Honorable James Orenstein,” Dearie’s proposed plan for the document review said. The order said Orenstein “has experience with complex case management, privilege review, warrant procedures, and other matters that may arise in the course of the Special Master’s duties.”
So who's Orenstein?
Orenstein spent 16 years as a federal magistrate in the same Brooklyn courthouse where Dearie sits. Orenstein drew attention several years ago for his role in what was semi-sarcastically dubbed “the magistrates’ revolt” — rulings from a smattering of federal magistrate judges across the country questioning government tactics in warrant applications seeking electronic data.
Hmm.
In 2016, Orenstein issued a controversial ruling rejecting prosecutors’ arguments that a two-century-old federal law gave the government the right to command Apple to assist in unlocking an iPhone used by an alleged drug dealer. The judge’s pro-privacy stance in that matter may have led the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to appoint him to a list of approved friends of the court who provide their perspective on surveillance requests.
So FISA had its doubts about what the gov't was doing--in surveillance cases. MAL is not a surveillance case so it is curious that Judge Dearie would want Orenstein's help. Maybe Dearie has doubts about the MAL search warrant and affidavit? Maybe they knew each other from Brooklyn and this is all a coincidence? Yeah, right.
[Orenstein] has a top secret clearance.
Dearie does not. But since a panel of the 11th Circuit gave DOJ access to the classified docs, 100 of them, yesterday and Judge Dearie proposed Orenstein today, is a top secret clearance necessary to review the remaining 10,000+ pages of unclassified? Or does Dearie want Orenstein to also vet the classifieds? The sequence and the request are highly suggestive that Dearie wants someone to examine the validity of Magistrate Judge Reinhart's approval of the MAL search warrant. This is looking very fishy. Trump's lawyers got Loose Cannon to hear the request for special master; they got Dearie to be special master, now Dearie has proposed Orenstein who has the unneeded (?) top secret security clearance.
...
As of now, roughly 100 documents with various national security classification markings that were seized during the search will not be part of the special master process.
So there is NOT the need for a top secret clearance.
...
The federal judge who named Dearie as special master, Florida-based Aileen Cannon, has previously ruled that Trump must assume all expenses related to the review.
Dearie said in the Thursday order that he won’t be compensated for his work as he’s still being paid his judge’s salary, but expenses such as Orenstein’s fees must be paid in full and on time or Trump could face court sanctions.
I understand that that arrangement is SOP and has the appearance of fairness. I also understand that now TRUMP IS PAYING ORENSTEIN!
While the seven-page proposal the special master issued Thursday bears Dearie’s name and a form of electronic signature, metadata attached to the document indicates that Orenstein — who retired from the court in 2020–was involved in drafting it. Dearie’s chambers did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether Orenstein helped prepare the proposal to involve him in the case.
So there is a conspiracy--not all conspiracies are evil!--but this was a "fix." Dearie called Orenstein, who has the top secret clearance not needed, to ask him if he would "help" review the docs, Orenstein agreed and Dearie asked Orenstein to prepare the request which went out under "a form of [Dearie's] electronic signature. Taken together all of this does not have the appearance of propriety; not all conspiracies are evil but this one is. DOJ knows all of this, maybe not the metadata, for which thank you Politico, but everything else and DOJ needs to IMMEDIATELY take this WHOLE THING before the 11th Circuit, GET THE WHOLE THING TOSSED.
