Judge grants Trump bid for special master

WASHINGTON－In a legal victory for former president Donald Trump, a federal judge on Monday granted his request for a special master to review documents seized by the FBI from his Florida home and temporarily halted the Justice Department's use of the records for investigative purposes.

The decision by US District Judge Aileen Cannon authorizes an external legal expert to review the records taken during the Aug 8 search and to weed out from the rest of the investigation any that might be protected by claims of attorney-client privilege or executive privilege. Some of those records may ultimately be returned to Trump, but the judge put off a ruling on that question.

The order came despite the strenuous objections of the Justice Department, which said a special master was not necessary in part because officials had already completed their review of potentially privileged documents. The department said on Monday that it was reviewing the decision.

The order almost certainly slows the pace of the department's investigation into the presence of top secret information at Mar-a-Lago, particularly given the judge's directive that the Justice Department may not for the moment use any of the seized materials as part of its investigation into the storage of government secrets at the Florida property. The injunction is in place until the yet-to-be-named special master completes his or her work, or until "further court order".

Even so, it is not clear that the decision will present a long-term impediment to the investigation's progress or significantly affect investigative decisions or the ultimate outcome of the probe. And a separate assessment by the US intelligence community of the risk posed by the apparent mishandling of classified records will continue under the judge's order.

"While this is a victory for the former president, it is by no means an overwhelming win for him," said David Weinstein, a Florida criminal defense lawyer and former Justice Department prosecutor, in an email. "While it is a setback for the government, it is also not a devastating loss for them."

Last month, FBI agents seized roughly 11,000 documents and 1,800 other items from Mar-a-Lago as part of a criminal investigation into the retention of national defense information there.

Agencies Via Xinhua