Ruling on special master to come later, judge says

A federal judge in Florida ended a court hearing Thursday without ruling on a pending request by former President Donald Trump to appoint an independent watchdog to review documents seized by FBI agents n the Aug. 8 raid of his Mar-a-Lago residence.

Judge Aileen Cannon said she will rule after hearing arguments from Trump’s legal team and federal prosecutors at the hearing, which was scheduled after the former president sued to have a so-called special master appointed to examine the documents.

The Department of Justice is opposing the call for a special master, arguing that it will delay the DOJ’s criminal investigation into the removal of White House records when Trump left office in early 2021.

Trump’s lawyers want a special master to review the seized documents before that probe can continue.

Special masters are typically appointed in cases where there is a risk that some of the records seized by law enforcement should be barred from use in an investigation because they are protected by the attorney-client privilege.

The DOJ argued in a court filing Tuesday that Trump lacks legal standing to have a special master appointed because the presidential records seized in the raid “do not belong to him.”

The department in that same filing revealed that more than 100 classified documents were found at Mar-a-Lago, the private club in Palm Beach, Florida, where Trump maintains a residence.

The filing said there is evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from a storage room at that residence in an effort to “obstruct the government’s investigation.”

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