Timely reminder…
With all the headlines it’s getting, now is a good time for a reminder that none of this ongoing Special Master drama is delaying the DOJ’s Trump case. The DOJ now has access to the classified documents and has resumed working on them. The Special Master is now relegated to the other seized evidence, which is essentially irrelevant.
Trump’s latest filing, and the ongoing squabbling between the Special Master and Trump’s pet judge, have zero impact on the DOJ’s classified documents case against Trump. The DOJ now has full control over when and how it indicts Trump on those charges.
At this point the Special Master storyline is only relevant in that it’s now its own standalone scandal. But it’s become a mere sideshow, as we knew it quickly would. There was no chance this would play out any differently. Trump should have known that; the media did know that.
By the way, even the Special Master saga is going quite poorly for Trump at this point. He seems to be trying to put an end to it and just let the DOJ sort the rest of the evidence. It’s getting that ugly for him.
Is it even worth paying attention to the remainder of the Special Master process? Sure, in the sense that the Special Master (who is not impressed with Trump’s antics at all) is trying to force Trump to lock himself into trial defense stances, even as Trump makes nonsense filings that could prove to be unwittingly revealing.
But keep in mind that the Special Master process is now a sideshow, and that the DOJ’s Trump case is now proceeding separately from it. You’ll see far more headlines about the Special Master saga because it’s publicly visible and juicy. But even as the DOJ’s Trump classified documents probe gets fewer headlines (because the DOJ doesn’t advertise what it’s doing), it’s infinitely more relevant than the Special Master sideshow.
