In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in West Palm Beach, Florida, granted Trump’s request for a special master, an independent third party who is sometimes assigned in sensitive cases to review material that could be covered by attorney-client privilege. customer. Cannon said the person would be tasked with reviewing documents that are not only covered by attorney-client privilege, but also any records that are also covered by executive privilege. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSign up The decision to allow a special master to review documents that could be covered by executive privilege, a legal doctrine that can protect some White House records from disclosure, is uncharted legal territory. Cannon also ordered the Justice Department to stop reviewing the records as part of its criminal investigation, a move that will likely at least temporarily hinder its ability to continue the investigation. But Cannon said U.S. intelligence officials could continue their review of whether the records could cause any harm to national security if released. Trump is under investigation for removing government records, some classified as top secret, from the White House after he left in January 2021 and storing them at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach. The Justice Department said it is also investigating possible obstruction after the FBI revealed evidence that Trump’s team may have intentionally withheld classified documents when agents tried to retrieve them in June. If the special master rules that some of the material is covered by Trump’s claims of executive privilege, it could hamper the administration’s investigation. Cannon, who was appointed by Trump in 2020 just months before he left office, rejected the administration’s argument that the records belong to the government and that Trump is no longer president and therefore cannot claim executive privilege. He gave Trump’s legal team and the Justice Department until Friday to jointly file a proposed list of special master candidates. Whoever the court ultimately strikes should have the necessary security clearances and legal expertise. It is unclear whether the Justice Department will appeal Cannon’s decision or on what basis. “The United States is reviewing the opinion and will consider appropriate next steps in the ongoing litigation,” said Justice Department spokesman Anthony Coley. Trump’s representatives did not respond to a request for comment. However, in a post on the Truth Social platform after Cannon’s decision, Trump wrote: “Remember, it takes courage and ‘guts’ to fight a totally corrupt Department of ‘Justice’ and the FBI.” A redacted FBI photo of documents and classified covers recovered from a container stored at former US President Donald Trump’s Florida estate and included in a US Department of Justice filing released on August 30, 2022. Department US Justice/Handout via REUTERS
“MUCH SPECIAL TREATMENT.”
Some legal experts called the judge’s order deeply flawed. “That’s not something the courts do,” said Jonathan Shaub, a former Justice Department lawyer. He said it was strange for Cannon to prevent the Justice Department from reviewing records at this stage of the investigation, before an indictment had even been returned. “It gives a lot of special treatment,” Shaub said. Cannon in her ruling justified her actions by arguing that Trump faces the stigma of an investigation into his home and that any future prosecution based on the seizure of those records would cause “reputational damage.” Trump, without evidence, accused the Justice Department of launching a partisan witch hunt against him. His lawyers argued that appointing an independent third party to review the materials would be an important check on the government. The Justice Department argued that there was no point in appointing a special master because its filter team — a group of agents not involved in the investigation — had completed its work. Agents located and removed about 520 pages that could be subject to attorney-client privilege, prosecutors said at a Sept. 1 hearing. The rest of the files have already been examined by the investigative team for the criminal investigation. In her ruling Monday, Cannon said she has ongoing concerns about the way the Justice Department conducted its privilege review, saying she was aware of at least two cases in which members of the investigative team were exposed to materials later classified as potentially privileged. . “These cases alone, even if completely unintentional, raise questions about the adequacy of the filter review process,” he wrote. Many former Justice Department lawyers, both Democrats and Republicans, criticized Trump’s call for a special master. “I don’t think a special teacher makes sense with the executive privilege stuff,” former Trump appointee Bill Barr, the attorney general, told Reuters in an interview. “If the documents are subject to executive privilege, they involve official discussions about executive actions, and by definition, those documents belong to the government.” John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser who also previously served as assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, called the judge’s decision “amateur” and not well reasoned. “My recommendation to the Justice Department is to immediately appeal the temporary injunction, but to cooperate and expedite the actual implementation of the judge’s order,” Bolton said in an interview. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSign up Report by Sarah N. Lynch? Editing by Matthew Lewis and Leslie Adler Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
