In Documents Review, Special Master Tells Trump Team to Back Up Privilege Claims
In The Washington Post’s “What’s Left?,” David Ignatius reports that former U.S. attorney Preet Bharara, a former associate counsel with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division and New York state attorney general, has been nominated to be a federal judge. Bharara won the Republican nomination against former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani and is now set to take on Hillary Clinton for the Democrats in the general election. Bharara was part of the Trump campaign team for a period of about ten months in 2016.
I’ve been following Bharara for a very long time, and he is a man whose intellect, integrity, public service and legal expertise make him a fitting choice for a federal judge. He has a brilliant legal mind and is very popular inside the Department of Justice and other legal agencies.
But the nomination process is not over yet, and now a little over a month later, Bharara has come to the defense of President Trump again, this time for having allegedly told then-candidate Trump that if he needed a “good lawyer, I have one.” Bharara said he never spoke those words to Trump. But, he went on, Trump’s team never asked him for a privilege he was entitled to, and he never asked for a privilege he was not allowed.
Trump’s team, he claims, never asked him for a privilege he was entitled to
While Bharara has a deep knowledge of the legal issues in the Trump-Russia inquiry, and is a brilliant lawyer, I’m not sure he has a deep understanding of the Trump/Russia investigation. Here’s what’s left about his claim that Mr. Trump never asked Bharara for a privilege. Here’s what’s left about what he says is Trump’s team never having asked him for a privilege he was entitled to
It’s worth noting that Bharara didn’t have the opportunity to defend himself in court,
