Former Trump Justice Department spokesperson Sarah Isgur said the special master reviewing Mar-a-Lago documents is pushing the former president’s legal team to “put up or shut up” regarding claims of planted materials and declassified documents.
Isgur, a political commentator, said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that special master Judge Raymond Dearie was “really taking the case” to Trump’s lawyers, who have refused to provide evidence supporting their client’s claims that he declassified materials found last month at his Mar-a-Lago residence.
Dearie is “telling the Trump lawyers they need to say in court, in a court filing that could be sanctionable, whether the president ever declassified anything,” she said. “Whether they actually believe and have evidence that anything was ever planted at Mar-a-Lago. All the things Trump is saying publicly, the judge is saying put up or shut up.”
The FBI seized around 100 documents from Trump’s Florida estate amid a probe into the former president’s alleged mishandling of top secret and classified documents and allegations he violated the Espionage Act.
Last week, Dearie said at a hearing that if Trump’s legal team did not provide evidence refuting the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) assertion that the documents were classified, “as far as I’m concerned, that’s the end of it.”
Trump has slammed the FBI search as politically motivated, and last week argued the president can declassify documents just by “thinking about it.”
He’s also accused the FBI of planting evidence, another claim that Dearie has asked him to produce evidence of in court.
Dearie was appointed after the former president brought legal action in a Florida court asking for a special master to sift through the documents and determine whether some are protected under executive or attorney-client privilege.
Judge Aileen Cannon approved his request and picked Dearie, one of two candidates for special master Trump had put forward.
Isgur on Sunday said it was “fascinating” the Trump team selected Dearie, noting he had served on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and has “dealt so much with classified material.”