During a hearing Thursday, a federal judge in Florida announced she will unseal a more complete inventory of goods taken by FBI agents during the Aug. 8 search on former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.
A progress report by the investigating team exploring the removal of papers from the White House after Trump left office in early 2021 will also be made public by Judge Aileen Cannon.
Judge Rules Out on Trump's Request for Special Master
However, Aileen Cannon did not rule on Donald Trump's upcoming request to appoint an impartial overseer, known as a special master, who would evaluate government materials seized by the FBI before the DOJ could use the information to further its investigation.
Aileen Cannon stated that she will rule on Trump's request later, which he made in a lawsuit filed last month in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Trump's attorneys had asked investigators for a more thorough list of papers retrieved from Mar-a-Lago than the less revealing inventory they had previously obtained.
The Department of Justice is opposed to the appointment of a special master, claiming that it will unnecessarily prolong its criminal investigation. The DOJ has also stated that a team of internal department watchdogs has conducted its analysis of the materials and identified some records that may be excluded from use in the inquiry due to the attorney-client privilege, as per CNBC.
According to Benjamin Hawk, who serves as Bratt's deputy and oversees the filtering process, the filter team, also known as a taint team, set aside 64 sets of information, totaling 520 pages of records, that potentially violate Donald Trump's right to keep interactions with his counsel secret.
Benjamin Hawk volunteered to share the papers with Donald Trump's attorneys at the end of the session so they would know which materials had been placed aside and not provided to investigators. Aileen Cannon declined his offer, stating she needed time to think about it before deciding whether to appoint a special master. A modest crowd gathered outside the federal courtroom in downtown West Palm Beach. Five guys claimed to have flown from Miami to show their support for the former president.
One group sported Blacks for Trump T-shirts, while Bob Kunst, a lifelong homosexual rights activist and one-time perennial political candidate, stood under a placard that said, "Fascist Biden Terrorizing Trump and America." Inside the courtroom, Donald Trump's lawyers blasted the Justice Department for objecting to what they called a modest request for an impartial examination of the confiscated records.
Trump's Attorneys Urges To Review Seized Docs in Mar-a-Lago Raid
Attorney Jim Trusty advocated for the appointment, calling the search and probe historic, terrible, and inequitable. Chris Kise, a former Florida solicitor general who served on Gov. Ron DeSantis' transition team, said the appointment of a special master would go a long way toward rebuilding public trust in the judicial system.
The records were kept at Mar-a-Lago, sometimes known as the Winter White House or Southern White House since Trump frequently performed official business there during Palm Beach's party season while president, according to USA Today.
The neutral party would go through FBI-seized papers for protected information. The Department of Justice, a review of attorney-client privilege information has been completed, and there is no precedence for having someone seek potential executive privilege material.
After the New York Times revealed that lawyer Christina Bobb signed a paper detailing the diligent search, Donald Trump hired Chris Kise, a former Florida solicitor general, to join his legal team.
Donald Trump attorneys Jim Trusty and Lindsey Halligan were seen entering the courthouse. After first claiming that information acquired by the government was planted, Trump and his associates claimed that the photograph released by the DOJ in its recent lawsuit was staged to portray him as a slob who mismanaged national security secrets, Daily Mail reported.
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