https://ift.tt/ZbcEwmJ President Donald Trump’s lawyers resisted revealing whether he declassified materials seized in an August FBI search of his Florida home as the U.S. judge appointed to review the documents planned his first conference on the matter on Tuesday.
Judge Raymond Dearie on Monday circulated a draft plan to both sides that sought details on documents Trump allegedly declassified, as he claimed publicly and without evidence, though his lawyers have not asserted that in court filings.
In a letter filed ahead of Tuesday’s hearing, Trump’s lawyers argued it is not time and would force him to reveal a defense to any subsequent indictment – an acknowledgement that the investigation could lead to criminal charges.
Dearie, a senior federal judge in Brooklyn, was selected as an independent arbiter known as a special master. He will help decide which of the more than 11,000 documents seized in the Aug. 8 search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home should be kept from the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into the alleged mishandling of the documents.
Dearie will recommend to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon which documents may fall under attorney-client privilege or an assertion of executive privilege, which allows a president to withhold certain documents or information.
It is unclear whether the review would go forward as instructed by Cannon, the Florida judge appointed to the bench by Trump in 2020 who ordered the review.
Trump is under investigation for retaining government records, some marked as highly classified, at the resort in Palm Beach, his home after leaving office in January 2021. He has denied wrongdoing, and said without providing evidence that he believes the investigation is a partisan attack.
The Justice Department on Friday appealed a portion of Cannon’s ruling, seeking to stay the review of roughly 100 documents with classified markings and the judge’s restricting FBI access to them.