美国国家公共电台 NPR--Trump's lawyers and DOJ head to court over request for independent arbiter

Trump¹'s lawyers and DOJ head to court over request for independent arbiter²

Transcript³

Former President Donald Trump's legal team has presented a document to a Florida court pressing the request for an independent arbiter to review what the FBI seized from Trump's Mar-a-Lago home.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Former President Donald Trump is trying again.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

His lawyers dropped another court filing about the classified documents the FBI recovered from his Florida residence. Trump has not denied that he took large numbers of sensitive documents when he left office. He's told his followers⁴ he declassified⁵ them, but his lawyers still have not made that claim in court, where they could be sanctioned for lying. Instead, Trump is pushing for a special master. This is an independent arbiter who would decide what's there.

INSKEEP: NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas has been following all the turns of this case. Ryan, good morning.

RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE⁶: Good morning, Steve.

INSKEEP: I want to put Trump's lawyers' filing in context because they're responding to the Justice Department, which filed earlier in the week. What did the Justice Department say?

LUCAS: Well, the Justice Department says that there's no legal basis to appoint a special master here. It says, legally speaking, the documents at the heart of this case are presidential records and classified documents, and they don't belong to Trump. They belong to the United States. The department says precedent⁷ rules out any notion of potential claims of executive privilege. And on the question of materials that could be covered by attorney-client privilege, the government says its own filter team - so basically agents who aren't a part of the investigation⁸ - has sifted⁹ through the documents, set aside those that are potentially covered by attorney-client privilege and handed everything else over to the investigative team.

So that review is done, and the investigators¹⁰ are moving forward. The government also says appointing a special master would impede¹¹ the FBI's ongoing¹² criminal investigation, as well as the U.S. intelligence community's national security review of the risk from the improper¹³ storage of these documents.

INSKEEP: So they're effectively saying that Trump has no legal right to slow down the process with this outside person. But Trump's lawyers got to reply. What did they say?

LUCAS: Well, Trump's attorneys are still very much pushing for a special master. Trump's attorneys want the special master to go through everything that the FBI took to identify, they point out, specifically materials subject to attorney-client privilege or executive privilege. They argue that the FBI's filter team isn't a sufficient buffer¹⁴ here to ensure that privileged materials are properly protected. The attorneys for Trump also included some of the fired-up, accusatory language that we've heard from the president himself. In this filing, they call the investigation an unjustified pursuit of criminalizing a former president's possession of personal and presidential records. That's how they sum this all up.

INSKEEP: Interesting that they said personal as well as presidential records. But did Trump or his lawyers answer some of the most damaging parts of the Department of Justice filing here - for example, the description of hiding documents over the past many months?

LUCAS: There are a lot of damaging details in the new Justice Department filing. Some of the ones you're talking about there relate to possible obstruction¹⁵. The department said the FBI had evidence that government documents were likely concealed¹⁶ and removed from a storage room at Mar-a-Lago where they were being kept. The department said that Trump's representatives signed a certification in June, swearing that Trump's attorneys had done a thorough search of Mar-a-Lago and turned over all classified materials that were there. But of course, the FBI, we know, found more documents in their search in August - twice as many, in fact - as Trump's attorneys handed over in June, which raises the specter of potential obstruction of justice here.

Trump's attorneys, as to your question, no, they didn't really tackle this directly in their filing. But Trump himself did react on his social media platform. He lashed¹⁷ out at the government over a photo in the Justice Department's filing that shows classified documents on the floor at Mar-a-Lago. He said the FBI took the documents out of cartons and spread them around on the carpet to make it look like a big find. But by saying that, Trump's seemingly acknowledging that he had classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and that he knew it.

INSKEEP: Doesn't deny that they were in the cartons. So what happens today in court?

LUCAS: Well, the federal judge is going to hear arguments from both sides and likely make a decision on a special master.

INSKEEP: NPR's Ryan Lucas, thanks so much.

LUCAS: Thank you.

1 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

2 arbiter   

n.仲裁人，公断人

参考例句：

• Andrew was the arbiter of the disagreement.安德鲁是那场纠纷的仲裁人。
• Experiment is the final arbiter in science.实验是科学的最后仲裁者。

3 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

4 followers   

追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件

参考例句：

• the followers of Mahatma Gandhi 圣雄甘地的拥护者
• The reformer soon gathered a band of followers round him. 改革者很快就获得一群追随者支持他。

5 declassified   

adj.解密的v.对（机密文件等）销密( declassify的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Thousands of classified documents have now been declassified. 数以千计的保密文件现在被解密了。
• The software used for Siemens S7-300 encryption logic block declassified. 此软件用于对西门子S7-300加密逻辑块解密。

6 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

7 precedent   

n.先例，前例；惯例；adj.在前的，在先的

参考例句：

• Is there a precedent for what you want me to do?你要我做的事有前例可援吗？
• This is a wonderful achievement without precedent in Chinese history.这是中国历史上亘古未有的奇绩。

8 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

9 sifted   

v.筛( sift的过去式和过去分词 )；筛滤；细查；详审

参考例句：

• She sifted through her papers to find the lost letter. 她仔细在文件中寻找那封丢失的信。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She sifted thistles through her thistle-sifter. 她用蓟筛筛蓟。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 investigators   

n.调查者，审查者( investigator的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• This memo could be the smoking gun that investigators have been looking for. 这份备忘录可能是调查人员一直在寻找的证据。
• The team consisted of six investigators and two secretaries. 这个团队由六个调查人员和两个秘书组成。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 impede   

v.妨碍，阻碍，阻止

参考例句：

• One shouldn't impede other's progress.一个人不应该妨碍他人进步。
• The muddy roads impede our journey.我们的旅游被泥泞的道路阻挠了。

12 ongoing   

adj.进行中的，前进的

参考例句：

• The problem is ongoing.这个问题尚未解决。
• The issues raised in the report relate directly to Age Concern's ongoing work in this area.报告中提出的问题与“关心老人”组织在这方面正在做的工作有直接的关系。

13 improper   

adj.不适当的，不合适的，不正确的，不合礼仪的

参考例句：

• Short trousers are improper at a dance.舞会上穿短裤不成体统。
• Laughing and joking are improper at a funeral.葬礼时大笑和开玩笑是不合适的。

14 buffer   

n.起缓冲作用的人(或物)，缓冲器；vt.缓冲

参考例句：

• A little money can be a useful buffer in time of need.在急需时，很少一点钱就能解燃眉之急。
• Romantic love will buffer you against life's hardships.浪漫的爱会减轻生活的艰辛。

15 obstruction   

n.阻塞，堵塞；障碍物

参考例句：

• She was charged with obstruction of a police officer in the execution of his duty.她被指控妨碍警察执行任务。
• The road was cleared from obstruction.那条路已被清除了障碍。

16 concealed   

a.隐藏的，隐蔽的

参考例句：

• The paintings were concealed beneath a thick layer of plaster. 那些画被隐藏在厚厚的灰泥层下面。
• I think he had a gun concealed about his person. 我认为他当时身上藏有一支枪。

17 lashed   

adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥

参考例句：

• The rain lashed at the windows. 雨点猛烈地打在窗户上。
• The cleverly designed speech lashed the audience into a frenzy. 这篇精心设计的演说煽动听众使他们发狂。 来自《简明英汉词典》