Trump allies hail judge’s appointment of special master as big win

Former President Trump and his allies embraced the appointment of a special master to review materials taken from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate last month during an FBI search.

The former president’s defenders hailed the decision from Judge Aileen Cannon — a Trump appointee — as a win for transparency and the legal process. The decision will also likely slow down any investigation into Trump’s handling of classified materials after leaving office, which could allow Trump to further cast the search as a partisan exercise ahead of the midterm elections.

“Trump will treat this order as a win, even though it is unconvincing and lacks support in pertinent precedents and is unnecessarily solicitous of Trump,” said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond.

“Trump will also see this as a win, because the judge appeared to stop the DOJ from continuing the investigation, which will slow it for some time,” Tobias added. “The DOJ will have to decide whether to appeal the ruling.”

Myriad factors could further draw out the process. Cannon asked the parties to submit names to potentially serve as the special master by Friday. But the Department of Justice (DOJ) could appeal Cannon’s ruling, something it would likely have to do before agreeing to submit names.

An appeal could extend the process, but if a special master is appointed, experts said, it would be difficult to pinpoint exactly how long it might take for the individual to go through all of the documents.

Trump’s legal team had for weeks advocated for the appointment of a special master, or a neutral third party who would sift through the seized materials to identify anything unrelated to the investigation or covered by privilege.

In Cannon’s ruling, she wrote that the eventual appointee would determine what is covered by both attorney-client privilege as well as executive privilege. The latter was viewed as an unusual step given Trump is no longer in the White House and the Justice Department is part of the executive branch of government.

In the immediate aftermath of the ruling, Trump and his associates viewed it as a victory while further fanning distrust in the FBI and DOJ investigation of the former president.

Mike Davis, president of the Article III Project, a conservative judiciary group, touted the ruling as a “major legal victory for President Trump; major legal blow for Biden Justice Department.”

“The FBI does not get to oversee itself. GOOD,” Jenna Ellis, who led Trump’s numerous failed legal challenges to the 2020 election, tweeted about Cannon’s ruling.

“The DOJ FAILED in stopping an independent special master from reviewing the documents from illegal raid on President Trump’s home. Why was the DOJ trying so hard to stop this? Are they trying to hide something?” tweeted Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), Trump’s former White House physician.

One former Trump adviser argued the ruling was a positive one for the former president if for no other reason than because it would slow down the investigation and potentially keep it out of the news cycle while the special master is appointed and then works through the numerous documents.

Trump, for his part, responded to the news by suggesting the judge’s decision invalidated the 2020 election and attacking the FBI and DOJ.

“Remember, it takes courage and ‘guts’ to fight a totally corrupt Department of ‘Justice’ and the FBI,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform. “They are being pushed to do the wrong things by many sinister and evil outside sources. Until impartiality, wisdom, fairness, and courage are shown by them, our Country can never come back or recover—it will be reduced to being a Third World Nation!”

The constant attacks are reminiscent of how Trump has handled previous investigations into his conduct, such as the Russia probe and the two impeachment proceedings against him. In each of those cases, he repeatedly decried them as politically motivated “witch hunts.”

The special master appointment will likely allow him to do the same, further politicizing the FBI search.

The FBI search conducted Aug. 8 has kept Trump squarely in the headlines in the lead up to November’s midterm elections.

The August raid came after authorities recovered 15 boxes from Mar-a-Lago in January that contained 184 classified documents, including 25 that were marked “top secret,” according to a heavily redacted affidavit that was used to justify the search last month.

Trump has used the search of his home to solidify support among conservatives, demonizing the FBI and framing the raid as an abuse of power intended to harm his chances of winning the White House again should he run for president in 2024.

At a rally with supporters in Pennsylvania on Saturday — his first since the FBI search — Trump decried the bureau and Department of Justice as “vicious monsters” and called the search of his home “a desperate effort to distract from Joe Biden’s record of misery and failure.”

While Trump has been happy to attack law enforcement over the search, some in the GOP would likely be relieved to see the fallout from the raid fade into the background with just two months until the midterms.

Trump remains unpopular with many independent voters, who will be critical in Senate races in swing states like Pennsylvania, Arizona and Wisconsin. President Biden and Democrats have been happy to elevate Trump and his attacks on the FBI to argue many Republicans don’t truly support law enforcement.

Biden spent the last week making the broader argument that Trump and his supporters are a threat to democracy.

“There’s no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans,” Biden said Thursday. “And that is a threat to this country.”