Ex-Trump Lawyer Concedes to CNN That Legal Team Hasn’t Argued Docs Were Declassified Despite Trump Claims

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.

When pressed, Schoen conceded the fact is significant but resisted reading it as an indication Trump’s claims are false:

JOHN BERMAN: I am holding in my hands right now the full filing from the Trump legal team that came out overnight. Nowhere. Nowhere in here does it make the case that the documents at Mar a Lago were declassified. Why do you think that is?

DAVID SCHOEN: Well, giving the full benefit of the doubt, I would say that they tried to keep the brief as narrow as possible, focusing on the question of the special master, which really is the only question before the court today. And so they didn’t get into a lot of details. They also didn’t address the idea of a potential disconnect between the certification that they filed and the subpoena in the case, which is an issue that’s going to have to be addressed.

JOHN BERMAN: 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. What risk would it have been for the lawyers to include it here?

DAVID SCHOEN: Well, I mean, there would have been a risk in that. But remember, in this case, the declassification that they’re talking about so far, at least in earlier filings and in public statements, is a, a rather informal process of declassification so the– scholars differ on whether it could be effective or not. Of course, the power flows from the commander-in-chief role. So there’s a question about that. There’s so much more to come out in the facts.

JOHN BERMAN: But you do think it is notable, or agree it’s notable, that publicly Donald Trump and many people who support him, political advisers, have said it was declassified, but in no legal document yet — which would carry a sanction if it weren’t true — have they made the case that anything was declassified?

DAVID SCHOEN: Yes, I just but I think the thing is, I don’t draw the conclusion that they didn’t include it because they were concerned about sanctions.

JOHN BERMAN: Fair enough.

JOHN BERMAN: I think they focused here. I think the two briefs were, as I say, like two ships passing in the night in some sense. But the focus today is on Special Master, and I think that’s where they focus.

Watch above via CNN.