U.S. Justice Dept, Trump team at odds over special master appointment and duties

In a joint filing on Friday evening, the U.S. Justice Department told U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that Trump's legal team is insisting that the special master should be allowed to review "all seized materials, including documents with classification markings." Trump's lawyers also want the special master, an independent third-party, to review the records for possible executive privilege claims - a mandate the department opposes.

The U.S. Justice Department and Donald Trump's attorneys said on Friday they are deeply divided over whether classified records seized by the FBI from the former president's Florida estate should be reviewed by a special master, and they each put forth a separate list of candidates for the job. In a joint filing on Friday evening, the U.S. Justice Department told U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that Trump's legal team is insisting that the special master should be allowed to review "all seized materials, including documents with classification markings."

Trump's lawyers also want the special master, an independent third-party, to review the records for possible executive privilege claims - a mandate the department opposes. Both sides also each proposed two different sets of possible candidates for the job, though they said they intend to inform the court about their views on each others' candidate list by Monday.

A special master is an independent third-party sometimes appointed by a federal court to weed through sensitive records that could be privileged and segregate them so they are not viewed by prosecutors and do not taint a criminal investigation. The Justice Department said it is proposing two candidates for special master: Retired judge Barbara Jones, who previously served as a special master in cases involving Trump's former lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Michael Cohen, or retired judge Thomas Griffith, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush who served on the D.C. appeals court from 2005-2020.

Trump's team proposed Raymond Dearie, a judge on senior status in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York who served on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and Paul Huck, Florida's former Deputy Attorney General and a former partner with Jones Day, a law firm that previously represented Trump's campaign. Both sides also said they disagree on whether the special master should be required to consult with the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, which is tasked with preserving executive branch documents.

JUDGE HAD ORDERED ARBITER Trump is under investigation for retaining government records, some of which were marked as highly classified, at his Palm Beach, Florida, home after leaving office in January 2021. The government is also investigating possible obstruction of the probe.

The joint filing came after Cannon, a Trump appointee in Fort Pierce, Florida, ordered the appointment of a special master arbiter on Monday, granting a request by Trump. After the Justice Department warned late on Thursday that doing so could slow the government's effort to determine whether classified documents were still missing, Cannon said in a court filing she was willing to consider limiting the special master's role so that person would not review classified documents.

Cannon on Monday barred federal prosecutors from continuing to use any of the seized records for its ongoing criminal probe until a special master could review them, though she carved out a narrow exemption allowing U.S. intelligence officials to continue their intelligence risk assessment. The Justice Department on Thursday asked her to reconsider, saying it opposes giving a special master access to classified records, and needs to continue reviewing them both for the criminal probe and the national security assessment.

The department gave Cannon until Sept. 15 to decide, or it threatened to appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. Now that Trump's team has voiced its opposition to the department's request, it remains to be seen whether Cannon will agree to exclude the classified materials from the special master's mandate.

Of the more than 11,000 seized records, there are only about 100 documents with classification markings. Trump's team has until Monday to formally spell out its position on the Justice Department's request.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)