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Trump-Appointed Judge Okays Special Master In Mar-A-Lago Document Search
- By The Financial District
- Sep 6, 2022
- 2 min read
A federal judge on Monday granted a request by former President Donald Trump’s legal team to appoint a special master to review documents seized by the FBI during a search of his Florida home last month, Eric Tucker reported for the Associated Press (AP).
Photo Insert: Mar-a-Lago
The decision by US District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, came despite the objections of the Justice Department, which said an outside legal expert was not necessary in part because officials had already completed their review of potentially privileged documents.
The judge had previously signaled her inclination to approve a special master, asking a department lawyer during arguments this month, “What is the harm?”
The appointment may slow the pace of the department’s investigation into the presence of top-secret information at Mar-a-Lago, but it is unlikely to affect any investigative decisions or the ultimate outcome of the probe.
The task of the special master has been mooted by the fact that all the documents seized from Trump had been reviewed by FBI agents and prosecutors with top security clearances.
Trump runs the risk of being charged under the Espionage Act, which punishes anyone who possesses top secret documents without clearance. He is also under fire of obstruction, which punishes any public official or citizen for holding on to classified documents or secret information and keeping them without any authority.
Trump has been to have taken out of the White House a total of 13,000 documents and stashed them in his office at Mar-A-Lago, a storage room in the estate and perhaps in his other properties.
The obstruction law was signed by President George Bush in 2002. It can even be used against Trump, who claims he had declassified all those documents. He lost the power to declassify documents when was routed by Joe Biden in the November 202 elections, deflating his ego after beating him by 7.5 million votes.
