Few Trust The DOJ, Which Is Why Court Should Reject Its Request To Freeze Special Master
By: Margot Cleveland
September 19, 2022
That outcome will be the only way to regain the trust of the American people.
The race is on between the Biden administration, which on Friday filed a motion to stay the special master’s review of some 100 documents the FBI seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, and the special master, who could begin reviewing those documents as early as this week.
Over the weekend, the 11th Circuit accelerated the contest by ordering Trump’s legal team to respond to the DOJ’s motion to stay by Tuesday at noon, even as the special master already called a conference with the lawyers for that same afternoon to discuss the review process. For the sake of the country, the 11th Circuit should deny the DOJ’s request and allow the special master to proceed with the review.
Much has happened since Thursday when federal Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, selected Judge Raymond J. Dearie to serve as special master to review the material seized by the FBI during an August 8, 2022, raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.
Dearie, a Reagan appointee and semi-retired senior judge for the Eastern District of New York, had previously served for seven years on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or “FISA” court. In fact, in that position, Dearie signed the FISA court’s fourth faulty Carter Page surveillance order. Nonetheless, Trump recommended Dearie to serve as a special master to review the seized materials. With the government not objecting to his selection, Cannon made his appointment official on Thursday.
Cannon’s order appointing Dearie also delineated his responsibilities as special master and the general process. Among other things, Cannon directed Dearie to “review all of the materials” seized during the Mar-a-Lago raid and to “verify that the property listed in the ‘Detailed Property Inventory’” “represents the full and accurate extent of the property seized.” The order further directed the special master to review the documents for privilege, including for formal assertions of “executive privilege.”
Most helpful for Trump and the half of Americans who no longer trust the DOJ and FBI, was Cannon’s order to the Biden administration that it make any documents with classification markings available “for inspection by Plaintiff’s counsel, with controlled access conditions (including necessary clearance requirements) and under the supervision of the Special Master.” The government must also provide copies of all other documents to Trump’s lawyers, and for nondocumentary items, the DOJ must make them available to Trump’s attorneys for inspection.
morehttps://thefederalist.com/2022/09/19/few-trust-the-doj-which-is-why-court-should-reject-its-request-to-freeze-special-master/
