Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Trump investigat­ors ask court to shut down special master

- ERIC TUCKER

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department asked a federal appeals court on Friday to shut down the work of an independen­t arbiter who was appointed last month to review documents seized during an FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate.

The appeal is the latest salvo in weeks of litigation over the scope of duties of the arbiter, also known as a special master, who was assigned to inspect the records taken in the Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago and weed out any that may be protected by claims of legal privilege.

The special master process has caused some delays to the Justice Department’s investigat­ion into the holding of top-secret documents at the home. But a major hurdle was cleared last month when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit lifted a temporary bar on the department’s ability to use the seized classified documents as part of its criminal probe.

The move permitted a core aspect of the probe to resume, greatly reducing the odds that the process could have a significan­t impact on the investigat­ion. Even so, department lawyers returned to the court Friday to ask for the entire special master review to be shut down, saying the judge who made the appointmen­t had no basis for doing so and Trump was not entitled to an independen­t review of the seized records or to claim privilege over them.

The Justice Department says it seized about 13,000 records, including roughly 100 with classifica­tion markings, during its court-authorized search in August. The department is conducting a criminal investigat­ion into the retention of those records as well as into whether anyone obstructed its probe.

As part of the investigat­ion, the FBI has interviewe­d multiple Trump aides, including a lawyer for him who served as a custodian of the records and presented investigat­ors with a signed letter in June asserting that all the classified records the Justice Department had asked for in a subpoena had been located and turned over.

Agents believed more records remained at the house, returned in August with a search warrant and removed 33 boxes of documents, including material classified at the top-secret level.

Weeks later, the Trump team asked a judge in Florida, Aileen Cannon, to appoint a special master to do an independen­t review of the records. Cannon agreed, naming a veteran Brooklyn judge, Raymond Dearie, to inspect the records and segregate from the rest of the investigat­ion any documents that could possibly be covered by claims of executive privilege or attorney-client privilege.

The 11th Circuit subsequent­ly lifted Cannon’s prohibitio­n on the department’s use of the classified documents for its investigat­ion pending Dearie’s review, as well as a requiremen­t that the Justice Department provide those specific records to Dearie for his review.

The Supreme Court on Thursday declined a request from Trump’s lawyers to intervene in the dispute.

The Justice Department said its investigat­ion remains slowed by its inability to use the much larger set of non-classified documents as part of its probe.

“A magistrate judge has already found probable cause to believe that those records may constitute evidence of crimes, and the government has demonstrat­ed a clear need for them.” the department said.

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