➡ This text is about a court case between Judicial Watch and a District Attorney’s office. The case was initiated because the District Attorney’s office didn’t comply with an Open Records request from Judicial Watch. The court has ordered the District Attorney’s office to identify documents relevant to the request, but the office argues that some documents are exempt due to ongoing investigations or attorney-client privilege. The court is considering appointing a special master to review the documents, but is also considering other options due to the potential cost and volume of documents.
➡ The text discusses a legal case where there’s a lack of confidence in the thoroughness of a document search related to a January 6th committee. The searchers didn’t use all available technology and didn’t keep records of their search. The speaker suggests appointing a Special Master to provide technological support and monitor compliance with court orders. The opposing side is willing to provide documents for in-camera inspection but opposes the Special Master’s request.
➡ The text discusses a legal case where documents are being reviewed for potential public disclosure. The court is considering whether to appoint a special master to assist in the review, but the defense argues that the court can make the determination without outside help. The documents are part of an ongoing investigation and are considered attorney work product, which may exempt them from disclosure. The court plans to review the documents in-camera (privately) and requests details about the search process for these documents.
➡ The speaker is discussing the process of searching for specific documents related to an investigation. They want a detailed description of how the search was conducted, including the search terms used and the accounts that were searched. They also express concern about the involvement of the DA’s office in the search and the need for transparency and thoroughness. The speaker suggests that they may need to personally verify the search results and remains open to the idea of appointing a special master to oversee the process.
➡ The district attorney’s office is considering further investigation options, including professional involvement, which could be complicated and intrusive. They’re also addressing a cell phone issue and deciding whether to use physical or digital documents for the case. The documents will be kept secure and any non-disclosable information will be filed under seal. The meeting ended with a reminder to keep the case moving forward.

All right. Ms. Taylor, are you able to hear us? Your Honor, I can hear just fine. Great. Thank you. I don’t need to hear from you. All right, then let’s get on the record. This is 24cv002805 Judicial Watch versus the district attorney, Ms. Willis. And we are here to talk about next steps in the case. This case was brought when the District Attorney’s office, I found, failed to comply with an Open Records act request that Judicial Watch had filed. And we’ve learned a fair amount about the efforts that were and were not undertaken by the District Attorney’s office to comply.

And we reached a point where I entered an order that set a deadline for the District Attorney’s office to actually do what it was supposed to do a while ago. And in doing so, the District Attorney’s office identified a universe of documents that would otherwise comply with the request or were responsive, I guess is the way to put it, responsive to Judicial Watches request. But the District Attorney’s office contends that those records or documents are exempt or accepted from production under the Open Records act because they pertain to an open investigation where they’re privileged, as in attorney client privilege and or their attorney work product.

Mr. Monroe, on behalf of his client, has filed a motion for an in camera review of those records and or the appointment of a special master. And representatives of the county Attorney’s office representing the District Attorney have express their view on what the right response is as to where we are. And I’m happy to hear from both sides. Now, I’m going to start with you, Mr. Monroe, but let me tell you what my initial thought is as to how we handle this. I think I can appoint a special master. I think that Rule 46 empowers me to do that.

I appreciate that, that the Open Records act doesn’t speak to it, but it certainly doesn’t prohibit it. And there’s Nothing in Rule 46 that says special masters shall only be used in situations outside the realm of the Open Records Act. But that’s an expensive proposition. It would be an expense borne by both sides, not just one. And I don’t know that it’s necessary. And that’s what I’m going to want to hear about more in a little bit. You’re doing some shadow boxing, Mr. Monroe, because you don’t know what’s out there. And I think that’s part of your, your client’s concern.

But my initial thought was that I hear, and it may not be that I hear in open court on the record but that I receive information from the district attorney’s office, through counsel for the district attorney’s office about what that universe is. And if it’s 55 pages, we don’t need a special master. I can do that. If it’s 5,500 pages, I’m not looking at 5,500 pages, that I will, but I’ll get that done over the next four years. And that’s not helpful to anyone. So we would need a special master because she or he could devote the time because she or he would be getting the money to devote the time.

So that seemed to me like the first hurdle is, well, let’s figure out really how big this universe of potentially exempted records is, how big it is. That doesn’t address, though, your concern. That’s why I want to give you the voice in just a moment of, well, that’s what came up when they really, really, really searched, when you told them they had to. But what about Mr. Bond saying, I didn’t look at people’s cell phones, I didn’t do this or that, Then I would be reviewing an incomplete universe. So we’ll need to work through that. I’m not sure I’m going to be telling anyone they have to hand over their cell phones, but I am going to list what you think ought to be done.

But I don’t mean to get ahead of myself. Why don’t we get the entries for the two sides on the record? I know we’ve had a little bit of a rotation on the defense side, so on behalf of judicial watch, we have John Monroe, your honor. And on behalf of the district attorney, we have. Good afternoon, your honor. Brad Bowman and. And D. Thomas. Hi, Miss Thomas. Hello, Mr. Bowman. Before we dive into it in the way I described, is there anything procedurally. Mr. Monroe, you want to go over? May I remain seated so I can say by the microphone, your honor.

Is that all right with you? As long as Ms. Taylor can hear you, I’m fine with that. Let’s make it easier by adding you. And you can move the screen around if you want to be more centered in the screen. And then we’ve got a screen with the lawyers for the DA on there as well, so Ms. Taylor can see all that and she gets the bird’s eye view of the courtroom. So you can stay right there. Procedural matters? I’m not sure. Your honor, I just want to point out, I think this hearing was noticed for both the in camera inspection and.

Or the special master appointment. I’m not sure what we can do today about the in camera inspection because one of the issues we have is there wasn’t a privilege log or anything else associated with it. I suppose that the defendant could just hand over everything they say is responsive and you could sort through it. I think that would probably be doing a disservice to you if they didn’t start by at least identifying what they have. And as they pointed out in their brief, one of the things that could be done is a hearing to determine based on their description of what they have, whether a might even qualify.

Because we might. That could be done. I don’t know that it has to be done. And I’m not interested in compelling the district attorney’s office to describe things, especially where one of the categories is open investigation. So I’m very comfortable starting the way I described. And I didn’t mean to suggest if we mislabeled the notice for this hearing. Today is not the day for the in camera review. Today is the day where we talk about what’s the next step. And I have fronted my view that what I see as the next step is for Mr. Bowman and Ms.

Thomas to get to me an overview of this is the universe of the things that were withheld. And to me, I’m much more interested in numbers rather than descriptions. Because if the total universe to include things that the district attorney insists are privileged is 12 documents and the page number is less than 100, I can go through that. I can figure out for myself what I think ought to be disclosed and not. And then we can go through a very common exercise is just outside the realm of the Open Records Act. Usually where then I would get back to the county attorneys to say I think these three things should be disclosed and they’d have a chance to push back, say here’s why you misunderstand and then ultimately you’re brought into the loop as well.

But I think necessarily there may be some ex parte communications as I try to understand what’s going on and then we make a record with you involved as to how I processed all that. But as I said, if I learn from threshold disclosure that it’s 10,000 documents, then I bow out of that. That’s not a proper role for me. And I think that addresses both things. In camera review versus special master, we don’t do both. We do one or the other. The in camera review doesn’t occur if it’s too voluminous. Okay, so I may not have expressed myself clearly at the outset or I may may be misunderstanding You.

I don’t think so. I just wanted to point out that, well, what I said is what I said, so I’ll leave it at that. Okay. But I guess I’d also add to what you just said, though, that I don’t think it’s. I don’t think it’s either or on whether you disclose or don’t disclose. I think redaction is also a possible option. Sure. I’m sorry. The either or to me was right now special master versus in camera. But you’re exactly right. There may. There may be this document right here. And the part that’s super sensitive is this paragraph right here.

It’s redacted and then the rest ought to be disclosed. I think that’s fully part of it. The fact that there are three sentences in a document that might be privileged doesn’t make the entire document fall within the ambit of exempt from ORA disclosure. I agree entirely. I didn’t mean to say otherwise. The either or was. I’d like to try to handle this via in camera review. You represent a nonprofit organization and the county attorney represents a government agency. So we don’t have big budgets to roll around. This is Chrysler suing Ford, where that. Great. We’ll hire 15 special masters to do it.

Okay. No, I agree with that. Okay. So I think you. And you said earlier in your preliminary remarks, what our big concern is is we don’t have any confidence in the universe of documents. I mean, you found in the order awarding attorneys fees that they responded without doing a search and then didn’t even do a search until after the complaint was filed. They don’t have any records of what they searched. They say they didn’t search even the cell phones of the six people that they knew were involved in some communication or dialogue or something with the January 6th committee.

And then when you ordered them to do, I think what would have amounted to like the fifth search, when they previously said they don’t have any records at all, privileged or otherwise. Now they say they have some records that are privileged. It’s just very difficult to have any confidence. Oh, and they said they didn’t know how to use the cellbrite technology to do kind of forensic searches, even though that’s how they do technology and they presumably use it a lot and they do it. Every cell phone that they see is from a murder defendant. Exactly right.

So that tells me there might be a technological issue. So we think a special master is going to be required for a couple of reasons. One is the horrible lack of confidence in their searching capabilities or efforts that they’re putting into it. And if they turn over the 55 documents to you and you say, yep, those are privileged, fine, we’re done. Like you said, there might be 5,500 out there that they should have produced and didn’t. And then because of the apparent lack of knowledge, at least with the people that do the searches of using this technology that they have available to them, a Special Master might be needed to provide technological support.

And the person you appoint is a Special master, then might have to consult with somebody else on how to do that, but probably the latter. I don’t know that we’ll get someone from Microsoft as the Special Master. But you’re right, we’d want to make sure if we get that far that we are empowering the Special Master to know what kinds of technical questions to ask. But I don’t view that as insurmountable. There are white collar investigation lawyers who are pretty savvy in that kind of situation. I have every confidence we could find one or more people to do the job.

Okay, but, but, but Rule 46 allows for a Special Master. And as you pointed out, it said it only says unless the statute provides otherwise. I don’t think the Open Records act provides otherwise. And the purpose of the Special Master would be to provide advice and information on technological issues related to discovery, which is one of the things we’ve got here. We’ve got basically what amounts to a discovery issue, and there’s technology available that apparently isn’t being utilized. And then also to monitor implementation and compliance with orders of the court, which is another issue we have where the court has ordered a diligent search and what was produced as the only one document that was produced was the one we gave them.

So that didn’t take much effort. And then we don’t know because of the many, many violations of the Open Records act we’ve seen in the case, there’s just no way to have any confidence that their search was thorough and productive and used all the technology available to them. So I think we need the Special Master both because of technological issues and to monitor compliance with the court’s order, because there’s just no way to know that, especially in this case, that there has been compliance. Okay, Mr. Bowman or Ms. Thomas, I’m happy to hear from either one of you.

What are your thoughts about how we ought to move forward? Thank you, your honor. And to the point that you made earlier, we’re looking at a universe of documents that we’ve been able to develop at this point. I don’t have an exact number, but It’s. It’s around 150 pages. It’s not an excessive amount of documents. Not. Not thousands. We don’t bring it in bankrupt boxes or anything like that. Have you had a chance to read any of the documents? Yes, all of them or some of them. But then we go through all of it. Yes. Okay.

I don’t want any substance in your response other than, yeah, it could be that way, or no, it’s not. But one of the ways that I think I’ll be able to address some of Mr. Monroe’s valid concerns would be if one of the documents that you produce says as we wrote in our letter from August2, and in the universe of 150 pages, there’s no letter from August2, as you’ve done your due diligence. And I don’t use that in a freighted way. I’m not suggesting you’ve gone through and made sure there are no overlaps, but when you looked through those documents, did you have any concern that.

Well, wait a minute, just internally they’re referencing documents that aren’t part of the universe of what was produced, and so clearly something’s missing. Well, your honor, there were two items that I noticed that I, I followed up on and got confirmation that no documentation related to the two questions I had existed. Okay. All right. So in general, it was a. A fairly self contained universe. The things that you received didn’t lead you to say, well, gosh, this says one of four and we only have one of them. Correct? Yeah, there was nothing. That was certainly obvious to me that there was something that was missing based on what was provided.

Okay. And I got an update that it’s actually 212 pages worth of documents. I think some of this just in Are duplicative as multiple people may have been on the same communications that have provided that. Okay. In the, in the suite. But this constraints office has recognized the challenges that were created in this case and has taken remedial measures as part of following up on this order to conduct these searches. And they had searches conducted that consisted of relevant email addresses of those involved in the cases and investigations that were at issue here. There were a number of search terms to try and capture the entire universe.

There were over 50, 50 search terms entered across the various people included in those searches. Some of the. When you say searches, this is searching, this is searching. Emails in particular. Got it. So if Jane Smith was someone who was represented to you to be Someone who would have been involved in communications with the January 6 committee. Then a search was made of her work email for the word insurrection and anything that had that word in it, you would have looked at. And it’s like, oh, she was shopping in a strange place versus it related to whatever happened on January 6th.

Along those lines. Yes. Searches such as January 6th committee, January 6th, Jan.6 Jan. Okay, I don’t need all the search terms, but I’m just trying to understand. It wasn’t searching for her name in her own email box. It was terms that, that the investigative team, whether that’s from the county attorney’s office or a joint team of DA people and county attorney people terms that would be relevant to the nature of the inquiry. From Judicial Watch. Yes, got it. And then physical files were also searched as well as phone searches. I don’t know about the cell Right.

Technology. That’s something that I can confirm. And if there is anything, if it hasn’t been done, we can do it and provide it to your Honor for a camera inspection. If. If it had been done, it didn’t turn up anything. We will inform the court of that. But there were significant changes, including the. The methodology used in the search from previous searches. In this case. Was your office involved in the searching or what you’re sharing with me is what has been represented to you by someone from the District Attorney’s office. The latter. The District Attorney’s office conducted the searches.

Okay, so. So you’re the vessel through which this is flowing. You’re not the architect of the SE. And I don’t mean you personally. It could be Ms. Thomas or someone else who was sitting there saying, all right, I’m going to type in this search term and see what emails turn green on the screen because of that search term. That’s correct, you, Honor. And the district training’s office is also prepared and agreeable to the in camera inspection, willing to provide those documents to your Honor. And on that line. And because we are willing to do that, we do oppose the Special Master’s request.

As discussed in the briefing and touched on a little bit today, it’s not specifically included in the Open Records act, but as John said, it’s not excluded by the Open Records Act. We don’t dispute the fact that the court does have the authority to appoint a Special master in case. But. Right. I don’t think it’s. I mean, there may be some obscure statutes that say special master, but it doesn’t say Special Master in the title 13 on contracts. But I can Appoint a special master in a contracts case case. So I don’t think the failure of the Open records Act statutory scheme to say something other than prohibiting it.

They could always say that. But it’s intrusive. I get that. And it’s intrusive into a sensitive agency. It’s not a special master who’ll be poking around inside the animal control building. So I understand the sensitivity of that and I still view that as a second step that right now we’re going to hold in abeyance. While I see, I have some other thoughts about what’s going to need to be documented from the district attorney side to flesh out this record. But you should keep going. And I agree with, I think all of that, your honor. And as you mentioned, one of the things that we wanted to point out was certainly the burden that would very much outweigh the benefit in this case, especially at this stage, appointed a special master.

When you say at this stage, like it’s too late for a special master or it’s high time for a special master. No, no, you’re not just in particular right now because we believe that the in camera review documents will allow you to make a determination and that, you know, the, the as we’ve mentioned, the size and the scope of the, of the universe of documents here and what they’ll reflect, we believe that you’re on your, you are in a position and certainly have the ability to, to view that and review that and make that determination without outside assistance.

And so based on that, I think that’s, that’s kind of where we are. We’re happy to provide the documents that we’ve determined for in camera inspection and just, you know, kind of reiterate that we believe that they’re not suitable for public disclosure and that they are subject to the exemption. And you know, there are a couple cases that definitely support it as well as the actual statutes themselves in the statute supporting being records of law enforcement. Well, I’ll cut you short on that. I’ve never heard Mr. Monroe say there are no such exceptions. I think his concern has been, and he’ll correct me, he’s good at doing that.

Is. Well, how do we know that? And it’s kind of suspicious that you have no documents and then no documents because we didn’t search and then we did search and we have no documents and then everything except what he gave the DA’s office is somehow accepted. But if I’m making it up, but if they are all attorney client privilege documents, they are all excepted from disclosure that I don’t. To me, that’s not the controversial part. It’s developing a comfort level that they don’t just now have a red stamp on it that says attorney client privilege, that if we carbon dated, it was affixed two weeks ago, rather than when that document was generated.

I appreciate that. Yes. And I think the more than the privilege, it’s. It’s both the investigatory aspect and the work product aspect that are the more prevalent. Talk a little bit about the open investigation, because Mr. Monroe, I think, made the wise request of, hey, we don’t want to have to come back here and do more litigation once the investigation is closed. Things that the DA has put into the bucket of open investigation, the bottom of that bucket falls out once an investigation is closed. That’s in the Open Records Act. I don’t know how much you can say or you know about the investigation.

I don’t know what makes an investigation open or closed. People have been indicted, and in some ways, that closes the investigation, because now there’s an indictment, the investigation is over. We get in front of the grand jury, the grand jury indicts, and now there is a prosecution. So that’s the P word, not the I word. And so we may need to do a little litigation around that. And that’s setting aside the question of. And it may not even be this office that’s doing the prosecution going forward. That doesn’t mean that the prosecution is closed or the investigation is closed.

Then it’s just a different entity. They might have the very same concerns. They might take a different view as to. But. But for now, we’re getting the view of the prosecuting entity. But talk to me a little bit about what open investigation means in the context of a indicted case. And your Honor, the exemption cited actually applies to both investigation and prosecution in this case. And the documents we believe would also, in addition to being part of the open investigation, do still constitute attorney work product, as well as part of. I see your point. Not there it is.

There’s. It’s exemption or exception for. It’s any pending investigation or prosecution. And we call it open investigation for shorthand. But it is clearly a pending prosecution. It’s an open case on appeal, but it’s a pending prosecution. So I. I won’t bug you about that anymore. It could be both. And there’s actually a case that talks about that a little bit. A 2015 case from the Georgia Supreme Court, Evans versus Georgia Bureau of Investigation, 297 Georgia 318. Okay. And so with that, I think we’re comfortable providing the documents for in camera inspection and of course, with any.

With any directions that the court would want to provide on how to accomplish that. Okay, I appreciate that. I appreciate the work you all have done. I hope Ms. Monroe, your predecessor on this, is doing well wherever she has ended up. Do we know where she ended up? I don’t recall exactly. I know she ended up. I think she’s somewhere where the state, if I’m not mistaken. Okay. All right, Mr. Monroe, you’re as the movement here. Anything you want to say in response beyond what you’ve already said in response to Mr. Bowman? A couple observations, I guess, your honor.

One is when you gave examples, you said 100 documents, you’re fine with that, a thousand, you’re not. Now we’re hearing a number in between, so I don’t know. I don’t know where that leaves you. 212. Seems like it’s a bit of work. I don’t have any lack of confidence in your ability to look at documents and see if they’re privileged or not. I’m not the least bit concerned about that. I’m not sure that you would have the ability to look at whatever they provide and have any more or less confidence in the thoroughness of the search done.

So I think. I don’t know how that issue is going to get resolved or go away without thinking about that. And I’m going to engage with you and Mr. Bowman in a minute. So we’ll keep talking about that. What else? That’s all you’re on. Okay. I share your concern. And, you know, you were gracious in saying the court found X. The court found Y. Dexter Bond said X and Y. I mean, my findings were based on what the district attorney’s deponent said. Yeah, we really didn’t search the first time we said we searched, and so on and so forth.

And I’m not pillaring him. He gave truthful testimony. But the facts of the case are such that everyone involved, in particular the lawyers who are now representing the district attorney’s office, should be leery of a representation that. Don’t worry, we got this. It was 100% thorough. So I actually took solace in hearing Mr. Bowman describe in some detail the. What sounds like the greater level of thoroughness of this most recent search. That said, my plan, to be modified by your input in just a moment, is to enter an order that indicates what we’re doing next. And it’s going to direct that Mr.

Bowman or the county attorney’s office. Get to me the 212 pages, et cetera, and any cover documentation that might help if they’ve been given notice by the district attorney’s office. These pages go into the open investigation bucket and these pages go into the work product bucket. And it may be that there’s a document that goes into all three and that’s fine. It doesn’t need to be mutually exclusive and you don’t need to do that. But it will help me look at. I may look at this and say there’s nothing privileged in here at all and if you were stuck in the room with me, you’d say it’s not privileged.

Judge this is work product, so it would save some back and forth, although I don’t mind having back and forth. If either you’ve categorized them through your review or confirmed you agree with that, that you’re sort of affirming the district attorney’s designation or if they’ve done it, it doesn’t matter who, who has designated it, that would help. But I intend to enter an order that says I will perform an in camera review, but I would like to also include in that order some details or maybe in the order direct the county’s attorney’s, county attorney’s office to provide an affidavit that will go into the record that details some of the specifics of the search.

I think that we ought to have an appendix to an affidavit that says these were the search terms. I think that’s relevant because Mr. Monroe and his client could read through that and say why is the word Trump not in there at all? Or the word the name Jack Smith. And maybe there’s a good reason why, but there could just be some things that were overlooked. It’s been four years and yet here we are still at this. And so someone may not have thought of something that was germane at the time. And I don’t think there’s anything sensitive about it.

But there may be, which is why I’ll let you flag something like here are 99% of the search terms that can be filed in the record. Here are the 11 that will disclose in confidence or in camera and I’ll figure out how to disclose to Mr. Monroe if I’m going to do that. But I think search terms would be helpful. I think description of how the search occurred and I need to be clearer in that. But it would be the email, the work emails of people involved with the investigation were searched using these search terms you mentioned.

Physical files were searched. I don’t know exactly what that means. I know generally I’m envisioning a manila folder opened, and you flip through it and okay, this is invoice. That’s not interesting. Oh, here’s a letter from Jack Smith. That’s got to put that in there. But some description of. Here are the steps that were taken beyond Dexter Bond walking down the hallway, say, hey, anyone have anything? And he said, I didn’t hear anything from anyone. And it turns out he did that Saturday afternoon. But something that would allow Mr. Monroe an opportunity to do what he’s good at, which would be to pick at and say, I, I hear you.

That’s great. That’s 100 search terms, but you’re missing these five. And then I’d be in a position to say we ought to search under those. Or, you know what, Jack Smith versus Jack Q. Smith. I’m not going to make them run it again because they didn’t include his middle initial because they would have caught Jack and Smith. And it doesn’t matter what the middle initial is. But I think that will help me, and I don’t know whether it will help plaintiff, but it will help me be more comfortable that we are finally getting closer to the type of search that should have occurred way back when the Open Records act request hit that portal.

And the poor county attorney person who had to have her name on all these things saying it’s all good, even though she didn’t do any of it, it was the DA’s office that didn’t do any of it, and she had to have her name associated with that. So I think that’s what I’d like to do. And I invite and welcome input from you, Mr. Monroe, as to what you’d want to see in that affidavit or filing that would come from the county’s attorney’s office, county attorney’s office, detailing what was searched. It may be whose accounts were searched.

I don’t want to get too many names out in public as to who’s investigating what, given what’s been happening to FBI agents who were involved with January 6th. But again, there may be ways we can make clear that it wasn’t one email account that was searched. It was 27 that were searched. And the more that is done, the more of a hallmark of thoroughness that we see there. So do you have. Do you want to take some time to think about it and then you can. I don’t. People don’t need to keep filing things. You can send an email to me copying Mr.

Bowman and Ms. Thomas saying, I think it would be helpful to also get some information about this aspect of the search, if they even did that, because it may be that there’s this description of what they did, and then your observation is, huh, why didn’t this kind of search happen as well? Yeah, I think I’d like to do the latter consult with my clients. They do a lot of open record stuff all over the country, so they live and breathe this every day. So I. I’d like to consult with them about it. Okay. I do have one concern that I’m not sure you can address really at this stage, but Mr.

Roman said that all of the searching was done by the DA’s office. And maybe that’s okay, maybe it’s not. But in my experience in other civil cases with some kind of intensive electronic discovery, usually the attorneys are pretty intimately involved in that kind of directing it and making sure that what got searched was the appropriate thing to search. I’m troubled by the fact that we’re still leaving the DA’s office to its own devices on how to. How to do the search, especially with the track record. Sure, I appreciate that. And it may well be that after I’ve had a chance to look at the 212 pages and you and I both are able to process what’s submitted through the county attorney’s office about the specifics of the.

I’m going to call it the search protocol, things that were done to yield these documents, that a step that I direct is that Mr. Bowman needs to go in there and hit go on the search as well to confirm that that’s what comes up. I’m not there yet. But you are not being conspiracy minded in my mind to say it’s a little odd that we’re suddenly saying, okay on the fifth go around. They meant it when they said no, no, we researched thoroughly this time, so you should continue to be the skeptic and voice that skepticism.

I’m trying to help everyone paint the picture of what does this latest effort really look like. And it may, in the end, satisfy me, it may leave your client unsatisfied, but that’s where client management comes in, or an appeal or whatever. But we’re not at that point yet. I need to go through the documents and then we need to get that submission from the county attorney’s office. After you and I both have had a chance to think a little bit more about what do we want that affidavit or whatever it’s going to be to look like what Are the contents, what were the search terms, whose accounts were searched? Again, balancing.

I’m going to call it privacy interest. We’re all public. You’re not. But we’re all public servants. But there are reasons to be careful about the identity of public servants right now who were doing what they were told to do by a superior. And in the eyes of some right now, that was treasonous activity. It’s unfortunate that that’s how it’s being cast, but it’s going to make me be careful about not how we disclose disclosable information, but how we manage the process of describing who had a role in the investigative work that was going on. Okay. All right.

Anything else you want to add? No, thanks. All right, Mr. Bowman, anything else? Move anything further? Thank you. Have I said things that leave either side with a lack of clarity as to what’s happening next? Because I don’t mean for that. I know it’s a little bit amorphous. Because you want some time, Mr. Monroe, to consult with your client and flesh out. Here’s what I, meaning plaintiff petitioner, would like to see in this affidavit describing how the search was conducted. I’ll enter an order that says, I’m taking this under the 212 pages in camera to review that.

So that’s in the record? It’s in the transcript right now, but that ought to be demarcated on this date. County attorney, you got four days to bring me the documents or 48 hours or whatever it is, and then we’ll all know where those are. Because. Because if I get distracted by something else that maybe happened in 2024, and there’s someone sitting in jail, then you’d be able to say, judge, you’ve been sitting on only 212 pages for a month. That’s 12 hours a page. Let’s go. And I’ll say you’re right. I gotta turn back to that.

But at least there’ll be that marker saying, here’s where we are in the process. Anything else you want me to be clearer on? No, I guess I just observe. I know the. The. The defendant in their brief said that a hearing was required before you do an in camera inspection. But then in their brief, they also said they would consent to one. So I just want the record to be clear that if there is any hearing requirement, they’ve essentially waived that so that we don’t have that issue come up later. Okay. Well, we’re having a hearing now.

It’s addressing the in camera inspection. I don’t think I need one for an in camera inspection. I think I need one for a special master. You pointed that out. Rule 46 says I can’t appoint a special master without a hearing. I’m not appointing a special master right now. But we’ve had a hearing on both topics and I find that both sides have had sufficient time to resist the concept of an in camera review or to support it. And I think we’re at a point right now where everyone is agreeing. Okay. The next step will be an in camera review.

You are not waiving, Mr. Monroe, your efforts to have a special master involved. And you’re not. I’m telling you you’re not. And I remain open to that concept. This is a graduated approach. If I look at the 212 pages and am grossly underwhelmed and it’s just patent that there gotta be other things out there, then we’re done with the DA telling the county attorney, don’t worry, I’ve got this and we bring in the professionals. That will be messy. And so I won’t do that lightly. That’s pretty complicated. I don’t mean technically complicated. It may be I won’t have to be involved with that.

But it’s intrusive and hopefully everyone’s been thinking that that is the least good outcome. And so this search was thorough, but we’ll see. So no options are off the table. This to me seems like the reasonable next step in particular because it’s 212 pages and not 2120 pages. So we’ll see. Anything else on behalf of the district attorney’s office? No, other than in addition to an info pages, what we will do is also follow up regarding the cell phone issue that was. That was raised the particular technology just to ensure that that was completed or it was not that it is completed.

So I’m not remembering. Your answer was your answer. Cell phones were searched, but you don’t know if it was cell bright or you don’t know if cell phones were searched at all. That’s correct. Cell phones were searched, but we. I don’t, I don’t. As I say here today, I can’t tell you whether the cellbrite technology was used. Okay, got it. Understand that the documents that you’ll be getting me, is it going to be a thumb drive and I’m looking them on a screen or is it going to be a Redwell and they’re printed out. Whatever the course preference is, it’s really you and your clients.

I don’t know if they prefer that it’s hard copy or they prefer defer that it’s on a thumb drive. Obviously, it stays under lock and key. And whatever I conclude ought not to be disclosed. We may agree. I’m going to file under seal in the record because there could be an appeal or who knows where this goes. But I defer to you and your client’s decision. I was just curious how you. And you may need to talk to them about that. At this point, I believe it’ll be hard copy, but we’ll update you. Okay. All right.

And any issues with legibility as you were looking through it? Nothing is like a copy of a copy from a napkin? I don’t believe so. There might have been a couple pages that were a little bit light, but nothing that I found to be illegible. Okay. Sounds good. All right. Well, if there is nothing else, I’m not sure who obtained Ms. Taylor’s services. And it may be both sides, but please make sure she’s made whole. And I think that’s it. Mr. Monroe, anything else? No. Thank you, your honor. All right. Mr. Bowman. All right. Thank you, everyone.

Sorry to make it late on a Friday, but this was the window we had. I didn’t want this. We need to keep this one moving. And this. This was a spot I had. So you all have a good weekend. All right? Thank you. You too. Bye. Bye. Bye. Your honor, it.
[tr:tra].

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