Berman Presses Ex-Trump Lawyer, Davis’ Baseless Rumor | Winners & Losers in Today’s Green Room
MEDIA WINNER: John Berman
Trump impeachment trial lawyer David Schoen conceded to CNN’s John Berman that former President Donald Trump’s current legal team has not argued the Mar-a-Lago documents were declassified — despite Trump’s public claims they were.
Schoen, who represented Trump at his second impeachment trial and is very much still a spiritual member of Team Trump, was Berman‘s guest on Thursday morning’s edition of CNN’s New Day.
Right off the bat, Berman noted that Team Trump’s latest legal filing contains no mention of documents seized in the FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort home having been declassified, as Trump has claimed repeatedly in public.
Berman went on to press Schoen until he ultimately admitted it is significant that the filing includes no mention of the declassification of any documents.
“I am holding in my hands right now the full filing from the Trump legal team that came out overnight,” Berman said.
“Nowhere. Nowhere in here does it make the case that the documents at Mar-a-Lago were declassified. Why do you think that is?”
Schoen first claimed Trump’s team was attempting to “keep the brief as narrow as possible” by “focusing on the question of the special master.”
“If there is no evidence, and there doesn’t appear to be any that we have seen and CNN has talked to a lot of people that there was any declassification in the documents,” Berman asked. “What risk would it have been for the lawyers to include it here?
Berman continued to push Schoen until he eventually agreed it is notable that Trump and his team have failed to mention the existence of declassified documents in any legal records.
MEDIA LOSER: Sean Davis
The Federalist CEO Sean Davis baselessly accused Slate reporter Mark Joseph Stern of being the Supreme Court leaker in a tweet Wednesday.
“Given that we’re a 100+ days since the Dobbs leak, with zero resolution, I think we’d all like to know how a left-wing blogger at Slate is getting leaked SCOTUS documents before the [sic] appear on the SCOTUS website,” wrote Davis.
It all started with a tweet from reporter Nicole Russell, who replied to a tweet Stern had posted about a new case on the court’s docket to ask how he had gotten the information so quickly. Stern’s not-so-secret trick was subscribing to the court’s email list for reporters. Not a conspiracy. Not a leak.
Former NRSC comms guy Matt Whitlock tweeted a screenshot and wrote, “I think we’d all like to know how liberal reporters like [Stern] are getting news out of the Supreme Court before it’s public.”
The silly rumor spread through right-wing Twitter, amplified by Davis sharing it with his more than 300K followers and eventually reaching Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who retweeted the accusation.
Repeated attempts to get these pundits to delete their baseless allegations against Stern were ignored. Consider today’s column a dishonorable mention for Whitlock, Hawley, and everyone else who shared the ridiculous accusations, but we’re granting the big “L” to Davis because as CEO of a media outlet, he should know better.
Stern blasted his accusers in a statement to Mediaite for “promoting a verifiably false allegation against me, despite their knowledge that it is a defamatory lie,” he said, calling them “nasty, deceitful, possibly psychotic bullies.”
Links We Like:
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– Anton Fedyashin, National Interest
Shireen Abu Akleh receives posthumous award from U.S. Press Club
– Ali Harb, Al Jazeera
Read the full Mediaite Green Room Newsletter here, including the latest on the ongoing legal battles in the aftermath of the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago.
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