Sometimes Rabbit 🐇 Holes 🕳️ Are Fun!

Another admission from the ex-president, who apparently thinks he can take government records because of something to do with @BillClinton’s cat (who denied any wrongdoing) pic.twitter.com/raF0t1NhBA

— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) December 6, 2022

First, NOT Socks the cat. Good joke, though. What case is it?

I actually think he means the Judicial Watch lawsuit over tapes kept in the ex-president’s sock drawer even though multiple courts have said that case doesn’t mean what he thinks it means.

— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) December 6, 2022

That's exactly the case he's talking about!  We have a winner!  And once again, it isn't Trump! But I found where Trump learned of that case and came to think it applied to him.

As expected, Donald Trump’s lawyers delivered their latest court filing this morning in the classified documents case, and for the most part it stuck to familiar claims and arguments. There were, however, some notable exceptions.

The point of the filing was straightforward: The former president’s lawyers want a Trump-appointed judge to continue to block the Justice Department from reviewing the classified documents it’s already seized from Mar-a-Lago. This continues to be odd: I’ve never understood why the executive branch should be banned from examining its own classified records, currently in the executive branch’s possession.

That's waaaay back in September (I know!  Ancient history, right?!)  The filing referred to is before Cannon appointed a special master, and long before the 11th Circuit threw that whole magilla down the memory hole.  Why do I bring it up here?

Trump’s newest filing for the first time refers to what has been called “the Clinton sock drawer case,” a 2012 ruling concerning a former president’s power — in this case, Bill Clinton — to unilaterally decide what is a private record and what is a Presidential Records Act document in his post-presidency.

Yup. The Clinton sock drawer case.  That's where Trump heard of it; from his own lawyers.  Why did they bring it up?  Let's go back to the facts of the case:

During his White House tenure, Bill Clinton spoke at some length with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch, and as part of the project, there were many recordings of their conversations. According to one 2007 account, tapes were at one point stored in a sock drawer.

A conservative group called Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit, demanding that Clinton be forced to turn over the recordings. In 2012, a federal court rejected the organization’s claims, concluding that the tapes were personal records, not official presidential materials.

You may recall Trump tried to make much of "personal records" being taken from his home.  In pursuit of investigation of a crime, that's perfectly permissible if the evidence seized might be, or lead to, evidence of a crime.  When it doesn't, it is segregated and returned to owner in the due course of events. Happens all the time.  But Trump's lawyers wanted to mark "personal" over as many documents as they could, to negate any charges of violating national security laws.  This is part of what the 11th Circuit tore Trump's lawyers (and Cannon) a new one on, on the way to tossing the case because Cannon lacked jurisdiction to act.

Here, this is how it was reported in the good old days of last September (🎶"and the days grow short when you reach September..."🎶):

In today’s filing, Trump’s lawyers highlighted the controversy as an example of a former president exercising some discretion over what materials would and would not be turned over to the National Archives. If Clinton made such a decision with his records, the argument goes, and that was considered legally permissible by a federal court, then Trump should have similar discretion.

As I say: going for as much protection as they could get:

But it’s not nearly that simple. NBC News’ report added, “[U]nmentioned by Trump’s defenders who began raising the issue of the sock drawer case last month is that Jackson’s ruling explicitly states that the Presidential Records Act distinguishes presidential records from ‘personal records,’ defined as documents that are ‘purely private or nonpublic character.’”

In the end, they didn't get any

In contrast, Trump took highly sensitive national security secrets to his glorified country club. To see the two as comparable is to overlook every relevant detail.

Pretty much what the 11th circuit said.

So, not about a cat; not about Clinton's socks; and not about how Donald Trump made government property his personal property by taking it to Florida.  And again, anything Trump thinks shouldn't be applied to him is unfair and cheaters, cheaters, cheaters!

He really is like a two-year old.