A U.S. judge declared on Saturday that it was her “preliminary intent” to approve former President Donald Trump’s petition to name a special master to supervise a review of documents taken from his Florida residence on August 8 during an FBI search, Reuters reports.
Trump’s 2020 nominee for U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon ordered the Justice Department to provide further information under secrecy on Saturday, “specifying all property seized pursuant to the search warrant.”
In a letter dated Aug. 22, Trump also requested the Justice Department give him a more thorough inventory of the material taken from his Mar-a-Lago residence during the FBI’s search on Aug. 8. He also urged the FBI to return any things that were taken in violation of the search warrant’s parameters.
Trump requested a special master, and Cannon set a hearing on Thursday after giving the government until Tuesday to respond. In her order, she stated that she had not reached a final decision about Trump’s request.
It is occasionally possible to appoint a special master to assess items that have been seized and make sure that investigators are not looking at privileged information in very sensitive instances.
The Justice Department said on Friday that it was looking into allegations that Trump improperly retained White House papers, including those pertaining to covert human sources and intelligence collection, two of the most closely-guarded national secrets.
After Trump in January delivered 15 boxes of federal papers ordered by the U.S. National Archives, the FBI allegedly inspected and found 184 documents “bearing classification markings” holding “national defense information.”
Trump, a Republican who is thinking about running for president again in 2024, has already called the court-authorized search at the Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach “politically motivated,” and he said so once more on Friday.
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