WASHINGTON — The independent arbitrator tasked with examining documents seized during the FBI’s search of former President Donald Trump’s home in Florida said on Tuesday that he intends to move quickly despite the process. review and expressed skepticism about the Trump team’s reluctance to say whether it believed the files had been declassified.
“We’re going to proceed with what I call responsible dispatch,” Raymond Dearie, a veteran Brooklyn judge, told Trump’s attorneys and the Justice Department in their first meeting since he was appointed last week as a special expert.
The purpose of the meeting was to streamline the next steps in the review process that is expected to slow down by weeks, if not months, of the criminal investigation into the retention of top-secret information at Mar. -a-Lago after Trump left the White House. As a special master, Dearie will be responsible for sifting through thousands of documents recovered during the FBI’s August 8 search and isolating those protected by executive privilege requests. law or attorney-client privilege.
Dearie wants to know if the papers have been classified or not
Although Trump’s lawyers have requested the appointment of a special expert to ensure an independent review of the documents, one of the former president’s attorneys, James Trusty, made it clear that they were concerned that time Dearie’s proposed term is too ambitious.
Attorneys are also denying Dearie’s request for information on whether the seized records have been declassified, as Trump maintains. In a letter to Dearie on Monday night, the lawyers said that matter could be part of Trump’s defense in the alleged case.
But Dearie was not satisfied with that position. He said if Trump’s lawyers had not actually confirmed that the records had been declassified and the Justice Department instead presented an admissible case where they were still classified, then “as far as I’m concerned.” mind, that’s the end of it.”
Trusty says the Trump team should not be forced to disclose a possible safeguard based on the idea that the records have been declassified. He denied that the lawyers were trying to get into the “game” but instead believed it was a process that required “small steps”.
But Dearie at one point commented: “I guess my opinion on it, you can’t eat your cake either.”
Trump has offered to use this judge as a special employer
Trump has maintained without proof that all records have been declassified; His lawyers did not repeat that claim, although they have repeatedly asserted that the president has absolute authority to declassify information, and they said in a separate filing Tuesday that the Justice Department had does not prove that the records are still classified.
“As someone who has been president of the United States, he has unregulated access along with unregulated declassification,” Trusty said on Tuesday.
The resistance to the judge’s request is notable because it was Trump’s attorneys, not the Justice Department, who asked for the appointment of a special expert, and because the leniency included an adjudication. acknowledged that the investigation could be built toward an indictment.
In the letter, Trump’s lawyers said the time to settle that question would be if they pushed for the Justice Department to return some of the assets taken from Mar-a-Lago.
“Otherwise, the special Master process would force Plaintiffs to fully and specifically disclose the defense of any subsequent indictment.” They write.
Trump’s team also asked the judge to consider pushing back all of his review deadlines. That work included examining about 11,000 documents, of which about 100 were marked as classified, that were obtained during the FBI’s search.
Special masters are only part of the legal controversy
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who approved the Trump team’s request for a special grand total, set a November 30 deadline for Dearie’s review and instruct him to prioritize checking classified records. The Justice Department asked a federal appeals court to stop Cannon’s order requiring it to provide him with classified documents for his review. That call is pending.
Dearie, a Ronald Reagan appointee named in the hallways of the Brooklyn courthouse, made it clear during Tuesday’s meeting that he intends to meet the deadline, saying there is “very little time” to complete the assigned tasks.
Julie Edelstein, an attorney for the Justice Department, said she hopes the department can digitize the documents and make them available to Trump’s attorneys as early as next week. She noted that the department provided the legal team with a list of five government-approved providers for the purposes of scanning, storing, and processing seized records.
After haggling, Dearie directed Trusty’s attorneys to choose a supplier on Friday.
Earlier on Tuesday, Trump’s legal team urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for Track 11 to step away from the position of Cannon’s order temporarily barring the Justice Department from using classified records to investigate. criminal while Dearie completes her review. The department said that order impeded its investigation into the presence of classified information at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump’s lawyers called those concerns overblown, saying investigators could still do other work in the investigation even without scrutinizing the seized records.
“Ultimately, any brief delay to the criminal investigation will not irreparably harm the Government,” Trump’s lawyers wrote. “This order does not prevent the Government from conducting a criminal investigation, it only delays the investigation for a short time while a neutral third party reviews the documents in question.”
