An “off the charts brilliant” lawyer doesn’t ask questions to which he doesn’t already know the answers, therefore, Ted has set a trap for the BLM. I can’t wait to see what it is.
IMO, it's not a trap, it's quite plainly spoken right here:
If BLM indeed does not intend to claim any land which it does not already administer along the Red River, the answers to these questions should be quite straightforward.
'claim any land which it does not already administer' means he's differentiating between the 'new' claim of the land and the land which they have overseen in the past.
This followed by the demand:
the answers to these questions should be quite straightforward.
Which basically means "Tell me EXACTLY what you're talking about, or shut the Hell up"!
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That's the way I read it, anyway. :-)