U.S. Judge Declines to Rule Now on Trump Request for Special Master

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) – A federal judge on Thursday declined to rule immediately on whether to grant former President Donald Trump’s request to appoint a special master to review the documents the FBI seized from his home in August.

At a hearing in West Palm Beach, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon also said she would defer ruling now on whether to unseal a more detailed inventory of the seized property that the Justice Department has filed under seal with the court.

Media companies earlier this week asked for the sealed documents to be released publicly.

Thursday’s hearing came less than two days after prosecutors laid out fresh details about their ongoing criminal investigation into whether Trump illegally retained government records and sought to obstruct the government’s probe by concealing some of them from the FBI.

Trump’s attorneys in a filing late on Wednesday downplayed the government’s concerns about the discovery of classified material inside his home, and accused the Justice Department of escalating the situation even after he handed over boxes of documents to the National Archives and allowed FBI agents in June to “come to his home and provide security advice.”

“Simply put, the notion that Presidential records would contain sensitive information should have never been cause for alarm,” his lawyers wrote.

A special master is an independent third party sometimes appointed by a court in sensitive cases to review materials potentially covered by attorney-client privilege to ensure investigators do not improperly view them.