“We’re going to go with what I call a task force,” Raymond Dearie, a veteran Brooklyn judge, told Trump and Justice Department lawyers in their first meeting since his appointment last week as the so-called special master. The purpose of the meeting was to sort out the next steps in a review process that is expected to slow down weeks, if not months, the criminal investigation into the retention of top-secret information at Mar-a-Lago after Trump left the White House. As special master, Dearie will be responsible for sifting through the thousands of documents recovered in the FBI’s Aug. 8 search and separating those protected by claims of executive privilege or attorney-client privilege. Although Trump’s lawyers had requested the appointment of a special master to ensure an independent review of the documents, one of the former president’s lawyers, James Trusty, made it clear they were concerned that Diery’s proposed deadlines were too ambitious. The lawyers are also resisting Dearie’s request for information about whether the seized records were declassified, as Trump has claimed. In a letter to Dearie on Monday night, the lawyers said that issue could be part of Trump’s defense if he is indicted. But Dearie seemed unhappy with this position. He said that if Trump’s lawyers don’t actually claim that the records are declassified and the Justice Department instead makes a plausible case that they remain classified, then “as far as I’m concerned, that’s the end of it.” Trusty said the Trump team should not be forced at this point to disclose a possible defense based on the idea that the records had been declassified. He denied lawyers were trying to engage in “gameplay” but instead believed it was a process that required “small steps”. But Dearie remarked at one point: “I guess my point is you can’t have your cake and eat it too.” Trump claimed without evidence that all the records were declassified. His lawyers did not repeat that claim, though they have repeatedly argued that a president has absolute power to declassify information, and said in a separate filing Tuesday that the Justice Department had not proven the records remained classified. “As someone who has been president of the United States, he has unlimited access along with unlimited declassification authority,” Trustee said Tuesday. The resistance to the judge’s request was notable because it was Trump’s lawyers, not the Justice Department, who had sought the appointment of a special master and because the defiance included an acknowledgment that the investigation could build toward an indictment. In the letter, Trump’s lawyers said the time to address that question would be if they press forward with requests for the Justice Department to return some of the property taken from Mar-a-Lago. “Otherwise, the Special Master proceeding will have compelled Plaintiff to disclose fully and specifically the defense to the substance of any subsequent class.” they wrote. The Trump team also asked the judge to consider delaying all deadlines for his review. That work includes reviewing about 11,000 documents, including about 100 classified, obtained during the FBI’s investigation. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who granted the Trump team’s request for a special master, had set a Nov. 30 deadline for Dearie’s review and ordered him to prioritize inspecting classified records. The Justice Department asked a federal appeals court to stay Cannon’s order requiring it to provide classified documents for its review. That appeal is pending. Dearie, a Ronald Reagan appointee whose name is on the atrium of his courthouse in Brooklyn, made clear during Tuesday’s meeting that he intended to meet the deadlines, saying there was “little time” to complete the tasks assigned to him. . Julie Edelstein, a lawyer for the Justice Department, said she hoped the department could digitize the documents and deliver them to Trump’s lawyers by early next week. He noted that the department had given the legal team a list of five government-approved vendors to scan, host and otherwise process the seized files. After some haggling, Dearie instructed the Trusty’s lawyers to select a seller by Friday. Earlier Tuesday, Trump’s legal team urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to leave Cannon’s order temporarily barring the Justice Department from using classified records in his criminal investigation while Dearie completes his review. . The department said the order impeded its investigation into the presence of highly classified information at Mar-a-Lago. Trump’s lawyers dismissed those concerns as overblown, saying investigators could do other work in the probe even without examining the seized records. “Ultimately, any brief delay in the criminal investigation will not irreparably harm the government,” Trump’s lawyers wrote. “The order does not preclude the government from conducting a criminal investigation, it merely delays the investigation for a short period of time while a neutral third party reviews the documents in question.”
Sisak reported from New York. Follow AP’s coverage of the search at Mar-a-Lago at
