Judge Aileen Cannon (Credit: Senate Judiciary Committee)
“A federal judge said she would make public a more detailed list of the items the FBI took during its search last month of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, opening the prospect of a much fuller picture of what documents might be among the classified material seized.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s decision came during a hearing Thursday over whether to appoint an outside party to review the materials now in the Justice Department’s hands to determine whether issues of executive and lawyer-client privilege put some of it out of bounds to investigators.
After hearing arguments from both sides, she said she would issue a written order in due course on Mr. Trump’s request for that third-party review.
Attorneys for Mr. Trump argued that the federal government’s handling of the investigation had damaged public confidence in the probe’s integrity and transparency. They said the appointment of a special master to review documents would help put issues raised by the case in proper context.
“We need respectfully to lower the temperature on both sides,” said Chris Kise, a former Florida solicitor general with ties to the GOP who was added this week to the former president’s legal team.
Jay Bratt, the Justice Department’s lead attorney on the case, said Mr. Trump wasn’t entitled to the appointment of a special master because the classified and presidential records seized didn’t belong to him, but rather to the U.S.
“He is no longer the president,” said Mr. Bratt, chief of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence and export control section. “And because he is no longer the president, he had no right to take those documents.” (Read more: Wall Street Journal, 9/1/2022) (Archive)