Judge still open to special master in Trump documents case

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A federal judge signaled Thursday that she remained open to granting former President Donald Trump’s request to appoint an independent arbiter to go through documents the FBI seized from him last month but stopped short of making a final decision.

After a nearly two-hour hearing, Judge Aileen Cannon of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, reserved judgment on the question of whether to appoint a so-called special master in the case, saying she would issue a written order “in due course.”

Notably, Cannon did not direct the FBI to stop working with the files, which the Justice Department has said have already undergone a preliminary review by law enforcement officials.

Cannon, who was appointed by Trump in 2020, also indicated that she would unseal a more detailed list of the documents the FBI took during its Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-lago, Trump’s private club and residence in Florida. She had earlier ordered the Justice Department to provide the list to Trump’s legal team at its request. It was not clear when it would become public.

During the hearing, Cannon pressed the government to explain what harm could come from appointing a special master.

Jay Bratt, head of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence section, told her that a special master could slow down an assessment of the risk and damage to national security being conducted by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — as well as an assessment of whether the seized documents contain the sort of national security secrets whose unauthorized retention is a crime under the Espionage Act.

“We are dealing with over 300 records here” that had classification markings on them, Bratt said. “That process has begun. That process needs to continue.”

But Cannon appeared to suggest that if she did appoint a special master, she would do so in a way that would not hinder the security risk assessment.

She also left unclear whether she would limit the scope of any special master’s work to setting aside a small number of documents that may be subject to

BRITTAINY NEWMAN / THE NEW YORK TIMES Former President Donald Trump leaves Trump Tower Aug. 10 in New York. The Justice Department and the former president’s legal team squared off Thursday in federal court in Florida over a request for an independent review of materials seized from Mar-a-lago. The judge said she would decide whether to appoint a special master to look over the documents “in due course.”