— Washington A federal judge on Monday agreed to appoint a neutral third party known as a special master to review items seized by the FBI during its search of the South Florida residence of former President Donald Trump, and prohibited the Justice Department from using the material in its investigation while the review is ongoing.
In a 24-page decision, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon instructed the special master to examine confiscated property for “possibly protected evidence subject to claims of attorney-client and/or executive privilege.” In the interim, the government must “temporarily” cease “reviewing and using the seized information for investigative purposes until the special master’s review is complete or until further court order.”
However, Cannon permitted the government to continue studying and utilizing the confiscated materials for “intelligence classification and national security evaluations.”
Cannon reported that the data taken from Mar-a-Lago includes “medical documents, tax-related correspondence, and accounting information,” citing a report from an FBI team tasked with determining which documents may be protected.
In addition to “being deprived of potentially substantial personal records, which alone generates a real injury,” she said that Trump also suffers “possibly inequitable harm as a result of the illegal revelation of sensitive information to the public.”
Cannon noted in her ruling, “As a result of the plaintiff’s past position as president of the United States, the stigma associated with the subject seizure is in a league of its own.” “A future indictment based in any way on property that should be returned would result in reputational damage of a significantly different scale.”
Anthony Coley, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice, stated that the administration “is reviewing the ruling and will consider next measures in the continuing dispute.”
Trump’s attorneys and attorneys from the Justice Department have until September 9 to “meaningfully confer” and submit to the court a combined document that includes a suggested list of applicants to serve as special master and a proposed explanation of the review’s mechanisms.
Trump requested a special master two weeks after the FBI conducted a search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago estate on August 8, seizing 33 items from a storage room and the former president’s office. More than 100 documents with classified markings were discovered in 13 boxes or containers, and three documents with “confidential” and “secret” classification markings were taken from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago office, according to a Justice Department complaint from last month.
The FBI also discovered 48 empty folders with “classified” banners along with newspaper and magazine articles, books, and apparel preserved in boxes or containers removed from the storage area, according to a complete list of goods confiscated from Mar-a-Lago last week that was released to the public.
The former president argued that an impartial third party should be appointed to defend his constitutional rights and told the court a month ago that the FBI seized “presumptively privileged” records from his time in office. Trump has also blasted the Justice Department for what he called a “unprecedented, needless, and legally unfounded” search of his property, and he has claimed that the sensitive documents he transported from the White House to Mar-a-Lago are “his own presidential records.”
However, the Justice Department, which opposed the appointment of a special master, told the court that the materials taken by the FBI did not belong to Trump and should have been returned to the National Archives and Records Administration at the conclusion of the administration.
Federal prosecutors also contended that a special master was unnecessary because an FBI filter team — meant to sift through and isolate potentially privileged materials — had already completed a review of the potentially protected records.
Trump’s handling of classified information, specifically the records he brought from the White House to Mar-a-Lago when he left office in January 2021, as well as possible obstruction of justice, are under investigation.
The probe arose from a recommendation made by the Archives in February, when it successfully obtained 15 boxes of presidential materials from Mar-a-Lago after months of effort. According to the Justice Department, FBI investigators conducted a preliminary inspection of the boxes in May and discovered 184 documents with classified marks.
In an extraordinary 36-page court filing filed on August 30, federal prosecutors stated the government had evidence that “government records were likely concealed and removed” from the storage room at Mar-a-Lago after the Justice Department obtained and served a grand jury subpoena for any classified documents in Trump’s possession. Additionally, they asserted that “efforts were likely made to obstruct” the Justice Department inquiry.
Last week, Cannon convened a hearing on Trump’s request for a special master but refused to rule from the bench. She did, however, order the release of the detailed list of goods taken by the FBI during its search of Mar-a-Lago, which was made public on Friday along with the government’s description of the current status of its reviews.
Reporting was contributed by Jeff Pegues.
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