I want to bring in
Tim Pawlenty,
a former member of the former
president's legal team
and the founder of Military Law Group.
Mr.. Appreciate you joining us.
The special counsel
pointed out in his filing today
that only two of the lawyers
who have appeared
on behalf of former President Trump
and will not to
have submitted the forms required
for obtaining security clearance to
to deal with the classified documents
at the center of the case.
Are they just trying to run out the clock
or is that I mean,
is that reasonable that only two
would have actually applied for it
so far?
Is that an attempt to delay the trial
Well, what we're talking about
there is a electronic submission of NSF.
86. I've done them before.
It is a very long thing
where you really have to give
all of your addresses,
all of your prior work experience
and basically anything,
anything that the
government may want to look into
to see if you have
the requisite character
to access classified documents.
It can take a little while.
I mean,
it's taken me a week to fill it out
but I don't think that
that is necessarily,
you know, the
the only short poem that
that what
I was kind of surprised
that with these motions
is that they've telegraphed right
from the beginning
that they want
to push this out indefinitely.
You know, that to me was odd.
Why?
I mean, it is it is kind of surprising
because essentially they're saying
it's not just, you know,
we want this data.
We don't even want you to decide
when there should be a date
Right.
See, in federal criminal cases,
the judge will set a date.
And everybody knows that it's a fake date
because they have to set the date
based on the 70 day clock.
And then the parties can consent
to pushing it out.
But also, that clock stops
for a number of reasons.
Any time you file a motion
that stops the clock.
So, you know, to at this stage
kind of asks for the judge to,
hey, just throw away
the clock is weird because,
you know,
a federal case of this magnitude
will take a couple of years
generally
even if it's now that Donald Trump,
even if it's not
a politically sensitive case,
it'll take a couple of years,
but it will get pushed out in increments.
You know, you'll push it out
You know,
two years in three month increments,
you know, throughout multiple different
scheduling orders.
And then every time you file a motion,
you know, here
they're going to file
undoubtedly a motion to dismiss
that's going to stop the clock.
While that's
all being litigated,
they're going to file a motion
to controverted the search warrant
that will stop the clock again.
And then once you start to get into,
you know, late
next year,
then they can start talking
about their schedule.
But the thing is, all of the grounds
that they're talking about with
it takes longer
because of classified documents.
A judge prefers to see that
after you actually have
some track record,
you know, instead of saying,
we think it's going to take a long time,
if you wait a few months and say Judge,
this thing is taking a long time,
this is why we need more time.
That's where the judge
has a much easier way of saying,
yes, I agree.
Let's push it out on the idea,
though, that only two of the attorneys
have applied for,
you know,
for security clearances
for for these documents.
I mean,
I would think this is probably
a pretty big case
for most of the attorneys
working on this thing.
So, I mean,
if they wanted to move along quickly,
I would think they would jump
on those security clearances pretty fast.
No, I mean, it seems like.
Oh, sure.
If you're trying to slow
walk something, trying to slow
walk it at every step of the way
is the way to go about it.
Well, the government has to initiate
those by giving them a link.
You know, not name.
They can just log in and and,
you know,
create an account for themselves.
So one question I have
is how many of these
you know, what they call the equip
SF 86 applications.
Has the government even sent out?
Yeah,
but the fact that Jack Smith
is complaining about it, it's associated
the fact that Jack Smith
is complaining about it
in court documents
which seem to indicate
that they had
probably sent out those links.
If you're
saying only two people responding,
you would think, but they would say,
you know,
maybe that they sent out links
to several different associates
Only two of them responded.
It's unclear
whether they may have only sent it out
to, you know, Mr. Blanch or Mr. Kies.
And they were the only ones
who have responded. I don't know.
I was talking to Chris
Christie last night,
who is obviously an opponent
of the former president.
He's also a former U.S. attorney.
He was saying that between now
and December could be enough time
for everyone to prepare for the trial.
Do you agree with that?
And if not,
what is unreasonable
about a December timeline
I think it's unreasonable
based on the specific issues
involved in this case,
because there is going to be
significant pretrial motion practice.
You know,
undoubtedly they're going to be filing
motions related to discovery,
related to dismissal,
related to the search warrant.
And, you know,
I have tried
federal cases very, very quickly
where December would very easily
be a good timeline.
But those are cases
where there were no search warrants
and there were no other issues
where we essentially just waived
motions entirely
and said, let's
go straight to a jury trial.
So I don't really see
that being as viable
in this particular case
based on the facts that are in it.
I want some of the other
folks on the panel I know
have some questions.
Yeah.
So I too have done.
SF 86 is throughout
or did them
throughout my government career and I
agree with your point,
they are voluminous
and you've got to pull
every piece of information.
But you know, my question for you,
as someone who's represented
the former president
and you didn't quite answer this
with Anderson,
do you think this is
just a deliberate delay tactic?
It certainly should be a priority
for an attorney
to get briefed up and get ready
and so out there
background checks in order to be able
to zealously represent their client.
And I guess
just it's really a sincere question.
Do you think they really might
just be trying to delay this
and push this out rather than, you know?
Well, you know,
it's a hard document to fill out.
It takes time.
I mean,
I just don't think
that's that convincing.
If that's
if that's the argument they're making,
I think that the bigger indicator
is the fact that they filed a motion
asking for the trial
to be just continued
without any date whatsoever.
You know,
that's the bigger
you know, that's the red flag for you.
You know what the what the strategy is.
Yeah. Yeah.
And I mean, the truth is,
if the two
if the two attorneys who filled it out
are the two
that are actually going to be reviewing
those documents, then that's fine.
I mean, you know, back with the old team
you know, Jim Trusty and I, you know,
we both have security clearances.
And, you know,
the amount of classified documents
we're talking about here
are not so voluminous
that you have to have a, you know,
a huge team of associates,
you know, ten different people
to look at them, having two people
look at them.
I don't see the SFA
tax issue as being the primary.
Sure. Indicator of delay.
Yeah,
I think I think what I'd say, though,
it's the kind of thing for which
you don't really have
a ton of recourse either
if you're the government
or if you're the court,
if they're just dragging
their feet on basic
things like filing their documents.
Those are the little things
that an attorney can do
to try to gum up
or slow down a proceeding.
And it seems there's just speculation
it seems that
that's the kind of thing
that we'd see much more up
over the course of this proceeding.
One thing to watch for, certainly.
Well,
I mean, a judge
can certainly impose a deadline on it.
You know, judge can say
you got to get this thing done by Friday.
And Tim, as you know,
I've seen that done as you would know.
And Eliot
and myself as the government
counsel, expedite security clearances.
So if the attorneys
were willing to fill out the 86 process
pretty quickly,
I mean,
the FBI oversees a large part of that,
of course, the Department of Justice.
But kind of to the point earlier
do you think that there is an argument
to be made
that there's kind of
a vital public interest
in getting this on the road
by December, by the end of the year,
so it could be adjudicated
ahead of the election
You know,
you could look at it both ways on that.
Ultimately,
you know, the constitutional right
to a speedy
trial is a right
that belongs to the defendant,
not to the government.
The defendant shall have a right
to a speedy trial.
And, you know, one thing
that I noticed in the government's
filings was that
they said
that they've already turned over
in that first group of discovery,
all of the 3500 material,
which is the
witness interviews
and the
grand jury transcripts
which is something that's very unusual.
Usually the government tries
to hide that until the very last minute.
They won't let you see it before motions.
You get it really
just a couple of days
before jury selection.
So the fact that they turned that over,
you know,
within the first batch,
which is a radical departure
from how the U.S.
Attorney's offices usually handle that.
That is certainly an indicator
to the defense
that Jack Smith
is trying to rush this
to trial as quickly as possible
by kind of removing
any discovery issues like that.
So I can see from that indicator,
you know, that
Jack Smith is certainly
trying to push this forward.
But, you know,
ultimately is
it in the public's best interest
when you have
a politically sensitive case like this?
It goes it goes both ways.
Well, I think some would argue
it depends on what
the verdict is, I guess.
I think some would argue
that voters should know that
before they go and cast their ballots.
I think if you were looking
at this, though,
and their complaints
were just about one thing,
whether it's the time
to get the security clearances
or asking for this indefinite trial date.
But they're also making this argument.
Trump's team
is that they can't get a fair jury
before the 20, 24 election.
I mean, do you really believe that
You know,
I don't think that this motion
is the best time to raise that.
You know,
that's something
that they would really have to get
a lot more evidence of
to properly brief
under the under the appropriate rules.
And, you know, as you guys said earlier,
this is Donald Trump,
whether he's a candidate or a candidate.
It is
a very difficult and divisive subject.
And so
I think that they are going to have
massive difficulties
picking a jury in this.
They should, you know,
get a pool
that's much larger than normal.
And, you know,
they're going to lose
most of them right off the bat.
But that I think
that that's kind of premature
to be raising at this stage.
You know, it's
it's a little bit of too premature
We should also point out
that is one of the things that Jack
Smith said in document states
initially that,
you know,
yes, there will be,
you know, special handling
different sort of procedures.
But that the courts are well-equipped
to do this,
even if it does require a little
bit of extra work.