The Justice Department asked a federal appeals court to lift a judge’s order that temporarily barred it from reviewing a batch of classified documents seized during an FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida home last month.
The judge's appointment of a “special master” to review the documents, and the resulting legal tussle, appear certain to further slow the department’s criminal investigation. It remains unclear whether Trump, who has been laying the groundwork for another potential presidential run, or anyone else might be charged.
On Thursday night, she assigned Raymond Dearie, the former chief judge of the federal court based in Brooklyn, to serve as the arbiter — also known as a special master. She also declined to lift an order that prevented the department from using for its investigation about 100 seized documents marked as classified, citing ongoing disputes about the nature of the documents that she said merited a neutral review.
The FBI says it took about 11,000 documents, including roughly 100 with classification markings found in a storage room and an office, while serving a court-authorized search warrant at the home. Weeks after the search, Trump lawyers asked a judge to appoint a special master to do an independent review of the records.
In appointing Dearie on Thursday, she granted him access to the entire tranche of documents, including classified records. She directed him to complete his review by Nov. 30 and to prioritize the review of classified documents, and directed the Justice Department to permit the Trump legal team to inspect classified records with “controlled access conditions.”