It’s the latest legal twist in the Justice Department’s historic criminal investigation into Trump’s possible mishandling of documents as his term ends in January 2021. The FBI executed a search warrant last month at the former president’s Florida home and resort, seizing 11,000 documents, including more than 100 classified government records.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon earlier this week granted Trump’s request for a special master — a lawyer outside the government — and ordered Justice Department criminal investigators to stop d ‘use the seized materials as part of his ongoing investigation until the special master completes his review.
It’s up to Cannon to sort out the differences.
The Justice Department wants the special master to move relatively quickly, closing his review in five weeks, on Oct. 17. Trump proposed 90 days.
The Justice Department also argued that the special master should not touch any classified documents and that the review should not include any consideration of executive privilege. Trump’s lawyers, meanwhile, want the special master to review “all seized materials,” including classified records.
Whoever ends up being appointed to the role will be immediately catapulted into the center of one of the most important criminal investigations in modern American history.
Justice Department nominees: Griffith and Jones
The Justice Department appointed two retired federal judges, Thomas Griffith and Barbara Jones, to serve as special masters.
Griffith, a Bush appointee, served on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals from 2005 to 2020. In one of his major final rulings before retiring, he wrote the majority opinion rejecting the ‘Democrats attempt to subpoena Trump’s former White House lawyer Don McGahn. (The decision was later overturned.)
Griffith later co-authored a report with other prominent conservative lawyers and officials debunking Trump’s lies about massive fraud in the 2020 election. And he publicly endorsed President Joe Biden’s nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson for serve on the Supreme Court.
Jones, a Bill Clinton appointee to the federal bench, is a former federal prosecutor and a retired judge for the Southern District of New York from 1995 to 2012.
She was selected to serve as a special master to examine materials seized during an FBI raid of Rudy Giuliani’s home and office in April 2021. She was also a special master in the Michael Cohen case, for ensure that the researchers did not sweep away any documents. who had attorney-client privilege. Both Giuliani and Cohen were Trump’s lawyers while under investigation by the Justice Department.
Trump Nominees: Huck Jr. and Dearie
Trump’s legal team appointed attorney Paul Huck Jr. and Judge Raymond Dearie to serve as special master.
Huck, who has his own law firm, had been a partner at the law firm Jones Day, which represented the Trump campaign in 2016, and a contributor to the conservative legal organization the Federalist Society.
He previously served as Florida’s Assistant Attorney General and as General Counsel to former Florida Governor Charlie Crist, then a Republican and now the Democratic candidate for Florida Governor. Chris Kise, Trump’s current attorney, also worked for Crist and overlapped with Huck. They worked together in the Florida Attorney General’s office.
Huck’s wife, Barbara Lagoa, was on Trump’s short list as a Supreme Court nominee after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in 2020.
Dearie has served as a federal judge in New York since 1986, when he was appointed by former President Ronald Reagan. He retired in 2011 and is now the circuit’s chief judge.
Dearie also served a seven-year term on the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or FISA court. He was one of the judges who approved a request by the FBI and the DOJ to surveil Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, as part of the federal investigation into whether Russia interfered in 2016 elections.
The details are up to the judge
Cannon, the Trump-appointed judge presiding over the case, has said she will decide “the exact details and mechanics” of the special master process “quickly” after both sides present their proposals. It is unclear whether he will hold a hearing on the matter or simply issue a written order with his decision.
The two sides have disagreed throughout the litigation, and not surprisingly, their proposals presented Friday spell out very different views of how the special master should conduct his review.
For example, both sides also disagree about who should pay the special master. Trump’s lawyers proposed that the costs incurred by the special master should be “allocated equitably” between him and the US government. The Justice Department told the judge they believe Trump should pay for everything, because he’s the one “asking for the special master.”
Separate appeal and request by Cannon to continue investigation
Separately, prosecutors are appealing Cannon’s sentence to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which also asked Cannon on Thursday to issue an emergency order temporarily allowing investigators to use the seized materials while the appeal is developed.
The Justice Department also says it should be allowed to continue accessing classified documents as the intelligence community reviews the materials for national security reasons, arguing that intelligence review cannot be easily separated from criminal investigation. Top federal prosecutors have said the intelligence review has been temporarily halted because of Cannon’s decision, which undermines national security.
The unprecedented search came after a different federal judge authorized the warrant, finding there was “probable cause” for several crimes, including Espionage Act violations and possible obstruction of justice. FBI agents recovered more than 100 classified documents during the search, including 18 marked “top secret,” which is the highest level of classification.
The investigation revolves around the possible mishandling of classified government documents. The US government has recovered at least 325 classified documents from Mar-a-Lago this year, through the voluntary turnover of Trump documents in January, a grand jury subpoena in June and the FBI search last month.
Trump has denied all wrongdoing.
This story has been updated with additional details.