🐆

Does the Trump legal team have to go through every page of a document?" the MSNBC host pressed. "They said it was like reading 'War and Peace' 78 times a day. Since this is all digital, aren't there lawyers in a lot of big cases who can just speed through this process using word searches? Is that not fair?" 

"Exactly," Vance shot back. "An entire industry has grown up around discovery in criminal cases." 

"You don't have to read 'War and Peace' 78 times a day, you simply search for 'Natasha' and find every page where she's mentioned," she joked. 

"A lot of this material will be the same; there will be emails and stuff like that," she continued. "I think it's misleading to use this sort of an analogy. Trump is a wealthy man, he has the ability to hire teams of lawyers. He has the ability to hire experts who do this sort of computer search that will focus their endeavors and their efforts in a way that's more streamlined than the argument they try to make in this brief."

I worked for a law firm when computers were brand new, installed the second year I was there. They had “drives” the size of large toasters, with one “floppy disk” ( the really floppy ones, 5” square (or bigger?). One disk was the program, the other data storage. The laser printer was the size of a small car, in a room by itself, reserved only for special usage. All by way of saying this was long before anyone used the word “digitized” in casual conversation.

I worked on a case there involving construction of a performance hall on the UT Austin campus. It involved a lot of paper. We didn’t measure in pages, then (my child). We measured in file cabinets. I was given access to a room with probably 50 file cabinets worth of documents. Every piece of paper to do with the construction of the hall. I had 8 hours to go through it and mark what we needed copies of. I spent a few months going through what they sent over, reviewing it and using it to prepare deposition questions for the lawyers.

So I’m unfamiliar with document production in the digital world, but counting virtual pages makes it sound like a brave, new world. It’s not one I’m familiar with, not in the practice of trial preparation. That’s why I rely on this article. But I can’t imagine it’s harder now than it was then. In fact, I can only imagine it’s easier.

I knew the request for a trial date in 2026 was an insult, a way to argue on appeal Trump was denied reasonable time to prepare. This excuse for delay just substantiates Trump isn’t serious, but wants excuses for why he lost.  Which is what’s in his future: several criminal convictions.

No wonder even Bill Barr argues Trump shouldn’t end up in jail. He should, of course. Barr arguing Trump shouldn’t only underscores that the leopard cannot change his spots.