Judge delays ruling on appointing special master for Mar-a-Lago documents

Sept. 1 (UPI) -- Lawyers for the Justice Department and former President Donald Trump presented arguments to a federal judge in Florida whether a special master should be assigned to review documents seized from Trump's Mar-a-Lago home.

Judge Aileen Cannon did not immediately rule if a third party should be assigned to determine whether the documents seized from Trump's Palm Beach, Fla. estate contained possibly privileged information, but said she would issue a written ruling later.

"The government should provide to the special master and to movant a copy of the seized materials, a copy of the search warrant and an unredacted copy of the underlying application materials," Trump's lawyers said in a court filing Wednesday.

Over the weekend, Cannon said in a ruling that she had "preliminary intent" to appoint a special master to review some of the documents, but she would wait after Thursday's hearing to decide how to move forward.

The FBI said it recovered more than 320 classified documents from Mar-a-Lago, including 100 seized in August when agents executed a search warrant.

Trump voluntarily turned over 15 boxes to the National Archives in January, and his team turned over other materials under subpoena in June. FBI agents seized another 33 boxes during the search of Mar-a-Lago.

Trump lawyer James Trusty accused the Justice Department of trying to "criminalize" the Presidential Records Act, while downplaying the concern of a possible national security breach that the mishandling of the documents could cause.

"We've characterized it at times as an overdue-library-book scenario where there's a dispute -- not even a dispute -- but ongoing negotiations with [the National Archives] that has suddenly been transformed into a criminal investigation," Trusty said.

The Justice Department argued, however, that a special master was either superfluous or unwarranted in response to the executive privilege claims.

The government's lawyers also cited the 1977 case of Nixon vs. GSA, which they claimed held that Trump could not invoke executive privilege because he is no longer an executive.

Cannon, a Trump appointee, said she was unsure if the Justice Department's interpretation of the case was correct.

"It seems to me like you're potentially over-reading Nixon, and to say now that there's absolutely no room for a former executive to raise a claim of executive privilege for at least some period of time. It's not entirely decided in the law. So I'm not sure if it's cut and dried as you suggest," she said.

Justice Department lawyers also argued that appointing a special master would disrupt the investigation and "significantly harm important governmental interests, including national security interests."

Cannon on Thursday said she would consider allowing the intelligence community to continue to review the seized documents if a special master is appointed, while also temporarily blocking the Justice Department from accessing the materials for its criminal probe.