WASHINGTON – Former President Trump’s legal team spent Tuesday locking down their pick to be the special master or third party to review the materials seized by the FBI from his Mar-a-Lago estate.
It comes after a judge, a Trump appointee, agreed with the former president that an independent outside official should go through the documents.
Judge Aileen Cannon argued, “…a commitment to the appearance of fairness is critical, now more than ever.”
Legal analyst David Weinstein tells Local 10 News the ruling was a victory for trump but by no means an overwhelming win.
“It appears on its face to be an effort to level the playing field,” said Weinstein. “It’s at best a short term win for the former President. While he may try to assert an executive privilege, it may not matter. There may be no documents that are covered by the assertion of that privilege if he can even meet the threshold of the full test to assert that privilege.”
The Department of Justice says they’ve recovered more than 300 classified documents, including 103 marked confidential, 162 deemed secret, and 60 labeled top secret, that were taken from the White House when Trump left office in 2021.
The agency says it uncovered evidence government documents were likely concealed in Palm Beach in an effort to obstruct the ongoing criminal investigation.