Attorneys for former President Donald Trump scored a big legal victory today over the issue of whether a “special master” should be appointed to oversee the contents of the documents taken by FBI agents from Mar-a-Lago back on Aug. 8.
The Justice Department had been vehemently arguing in opposition to such a move claiming it had already sorted through the confiscated boxes to separate things like personal correspondence or attorney-client privilege documents.
Given the current mistrust of the FBI to handle partisan investigations as ongoing revelations show at least one agent within the agency worked to bury the Hunter Biden laptop investigation just before the 2020 presidential election, appointing a special master seems like a prudent move.
As it stands now, this appointment will force the government to slow down and await the appointment of an individual to manage the documents:
In a legal victory for former President Donald Trump, a federal judge on Monday granted his request for a special master to review documents seized by the FBI from his Florida home and temporarily halted the Justice Department’s use of the records for investigative purposes.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon authorizes an outside legal expert to review the records taken during the Aug. 8 search and to weed out from the rest of the investigation any that might be protected by claims of attorney-client privilege or executive privilege. Some of those records may ultimately be returned to Trump, but the judge put off a ruling on that question.
The order came despite the strenuous objections of the Justice Department, which said a special master was not necessary in part because officials had already completed their review of potentially privileged documents. The department said Monday that it was reviewing the decision but did not indicate if and when it might appeal.
The order almost certainly slows the pace of the department’s investigation into the presence of top-secret information at Mar-a-Lago, particularly given the judge’s directive that the Justice Department may not for the moment use any of the seized materials as part of its investigation into the storage of government secrets at the Florida property. The injunction is in place until the yet-to-be-named special master completes his or her work, or until “further court order.”
The judge in the case, U.S District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, cited the potential for leaking damaging material and the need to provide another layer of protection given the delicacy of the situation:
“Plaintiff faces an unquantifiable potential harm by way of improper disclosure of sensitive information to the public,” U.S District Court Judge Aileen Cannon wrote in a 24-page ruling issued on Labor Day.
Cannon premised her ruling primarily on Trump’s claims of potential harm of the materials becoming public. She noted that a still-sealed report of items seized by a Justice Department “filter team” — tasked with screening out attorney-client-privileged material — said that “medical documents, correspondence related to taxes, and accounting information” were among them.
Cannon also described “leaks” to the media of information related to the seized materials as a potential risk to Trump, though she acknowledged being unsure of the provenance of those purported leaks.
She also repeatedly emphasized the extraordinary circumstance of the search of a former president’s residence.
In essence, Judge Cannon is throwing a huge bucket of cold water on the Justice Department’s ability to handle a case of this magnitude, and with good reason.
This is the same justice department that worked overtime in 2015 and 2016 to gin up controversy of a non-existent collusion narrative between Donald Trump and Russia. It’s also the same Justice Department and FBI that buried the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020 calling it “Russian disinformation” when the story and physical laptop were 100% genuine.
In short, there is too much toxicity in the way the FBI and Department of Justice have worked with the intelligence community to inflict damage on Donald Trump with phony information and stories that eventually turn out to be completely false.
Given that this appointment will slow down the investigation, it may help drop the issue from the news moving into the midterms. If the issue becomes mired in the court system with various legal battles over the next few months, the Justice Department will lose a lot of steam when it comes to some belief by Democrats that Trump could be imminently indicted.
This is a small victory for Trump but may be enough to push the issue well past the midterms and well into the next presidential cycle depending on how things shake out.
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