Trump claims FBI seized 200,000 pages -- but the math may not add up: legal expert
The latest claims by attorneys representing former President Donald Trump were called into question on Wednesday following a filing before Special Master Raymond Dearie.
Trump's lawyers claim they had difficulty obtaining a document vendor due to the massive breadth of the documents in question.
"The problem is compounded by the fact that when Plaintiff’s counsel referred to either 11,000 pages or even 11,000 documents during the status conference (we are still awaiting the transcript), the Government chose not to interject with an accurate number. In conversations between Plaintiff’s counsel and the Government regarding a data vendor, the Government mentioned that the 11,000 documents contain closer to 200,000 pages," Trump's lawyers claimed.
The filing was signed by James Trusty and included the names of Lindsey Halligan and Evan Corcoran. Attorney Chris Kise's name was not on the document.
MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin questioned whether the math added up in a thread posted to Twitter.
"As a former BigLaw litigator who participated in and managed doc reviews, I know that bankers’ boxes are generally thought to hold 2,000 pages each. And most of what the FBI took was in the form of 27 boxes of roughly that size," Rubin wrote. "So I’ll be curious to see whether DOJ disputes Team Trump’s characterization of the volume here."
Rubin said that the filing also points to the fact that Trump's legal team is seriously understaffed for the task at hand.
"But don’t be distracted from the real issue: A guy who pays a $3 million retention to one of 4 lawyers of record should be able to find plenty of worker-bee lawyers to actually conduct the privilege review," she writes. "The issue is not the people hours; it’s the people (or lack thereof)."