The Justice Department and Donald Trump’s legal team have proposed separate candidates to serve as an independent arbiter in the investigation into top-secret information found in an FBI search of the former president’s Florida home.
The Trump team proposed one retired judge, Raymond Dearie — also the former top federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of New York — and a prominent Florida lawyer, Paul Huck, Jr.into the retention of several hundred classified documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago within the past year.
— were recovered during the FBI’s Aug. 8 search. In granting the request for a special master, Cannon directed the department to temporarily pause its use of the seized records for investigative purposes., locating a limited subset that possibly involve attorney-client privilege. It has maintained that executive privilege does not apply in this investigation because Trump, no longer president, had no right to claim the documents as his.
“Thus, President Trump cannot be denied access to those documents, which in this matter gives legal authorization to the Special Master to engage in first-hand review,” the filing states.Executive privilege generally refers to a president’s power to shield information from the courts and public so as to ensure the confidentiality of presidential decision-making, though there are limits.
Griffith, the other Justice Department selection, was named to the federal appeals court in Washington in 2005 by then-president George W. Bush, and previously represented the institutional interests of the Republican-led Senate during the impeachment case of former President Bill Clinton.The Trump team recommended Dearie, who was nominated in 1986 by then-President Ronald Reagan to the federal court based in Brooklyn. He has also served on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.