Judge puts off ruling on Trump's request for special master to review Mar-a-Lago documents

A federal judge, who had signaled a willingness to appoint a special master to review documents seized last month from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, on Thursday declined to immediately do so.

After listening to nearly 90 minutes of sometimes heated exchanges between Trump’s attorneys and federal prosecutors, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon said she would issue a written order “in due course.”

At the request of Trump’s attorneys and news media organizations, she agreed to release a detailed list of items taken on Aug. 8 when FBI agents searched Trump’s Palm Beach estate, which also serves as a private club.

While insisting a previous barebones list was adequate, prosecutors said they had no objections to allowing Trump and the public to see a more detailed accounting of the roughly 30 boxes of classified and unclassified materials that were taken mainly from a storage room and Trump’s office.

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But, as they have said in court papers, prosecutors vigorously objected to Trump’s request to have a special master review the roughly 300 pages of classified materials that were found, some of which contain top secret information that deals with national security.

Jay Bratt, chief of counterintelligence and export control for the Department of Justice, said an independent review has already been conducted of documents. Material that would violate Trump’s attorney-client privilege has not been shared with prosecutors and agents who are investigating Trump and others for possible violation of the espionage act and obstruction of justice.

The filter team, also known as a taint team, set aside 64 sets of material, comprising 520 pages of documents, that could violate Trump’s right to keep communications with his attorneys private, said Benjamin Hawk, who works as Bratt’s deputy and is overseeing the filtering process.

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At the conclusion of the hearing, Hawk offered to share the documents with Trump’s attorneys so they would know what documents had been set aside and not shared with investigators.

Cannon rejected his offer, saying she wanted to consider it as she weighs whether to appoint a special master.

A small group of Trump supporters gathered outside the federal courthouse in downtown West Palm Beach. Five men said they traveled from Miami to support the former president.

One group wore T-shirts identifying themselves as “Blacks for Trump.” Bob Kunst, a longtime gay rights activist and one-time perennial political candidate, stood by a sign proclaiming, “Fascist Biden Terrorizing Trump and America.”

Inside the courthouse, Trump’s attorneys attacked the justice department for objecting to what they described as “a modest request” to have an independent review of the seized documents.

Calling the search and investigation a “historic, outrageous and inequitable situation,” attorney Jim Trusty pushed for the appointment.

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Another Trump attorney, recently hired Chris Kise, a former Florida solicitor general who served on Gov. Ron DeSantis’s transition team, said the appointment of a special master would go a long way to restoring the public’s confidence in the justice system.

“You are in a challenging and unique position to restore order and public confidence in the judicial process,” Kise told Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by Trump in 2020.

“We need to lower the temperature. We need to take a deep breath,” he said. “This isn’t about some low-level military person stuffing documents in their pockets and sneaking out in the middle of the night,” he said.

The documents were stored at Mar-a-Lago, which was referred to as the Winter White House or Southern White House, because Trump often conducted official business there during Palm Beach's social season while he was president, Kise said.

While Trump’s attorneys had a right to the documents, Bratt disagreed.

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“He is no longer president and because he is no longer the president he had no right to take these documents,” Bratt said. They belong to the U.S. government, he said.

Further, the law is clear that classified documents, particularly those involving national security, have to be stored in a secure location.

Instead, he said, the documents were intermingled with photos and personal correspondence in the storage room and Trump’s office.

Jane Musgrave covers federal and civil courts and occasionally ventures into criminal trials in state court. Contact her at jmusgrave@pbpost.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Trump classified documents: Judge puts off ruling on special master