Donald Trump's Special Master for Mar-a-Lago Docs Review Finally Named | Here's What He Will Be Doing

Florida Judge Aileen Cannon has finally named the special master for the independent review of the documents that the Department of Justice (DOJ) recovered on Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate last month.

Cannon earlier granted Trump's request to get a third-party reviewer of the Mar-a-Lago documents that reportedly contained highly-sensitive government information.

Because of the special master's involvement, the DOJ investigation on the issue has been temporarily halted, despite pushback from the said government agency.

Donald Trump's Special Master Finally Revealed

Judge Raymond Dearie was named Donald Trump's special master on the Mar-a-Lago issue on Thursday. As defined by the former president, the special master is tasked to be the person who will review the documents that the agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) seized on his Mar-a-Lago estate last August 8.

The classified White House documents were marked differently with "confidential," "secret," and "top-secret" labels. According to The Guardian, Dearie, a former federal prosecutor who served as the chief judge of the federal court based in Brooklyn, New York City for years, was one of the two candidates that Trump's team has suggested for approval.

Last Tuesday, the DOJ noted that they would not oppose Cannon's appointment of Dearie as the special master. Dearie served as a U.S. attorney in Brooklyn before becoming a Reagan appointee in 1986.

Assuming senior status, the 78-year-old judge has had a reduced caseload since 2011 and was the chief judge in Brooklyn from 2007 to 2011. The DOJ has affirmed Raymond Dearie's appointment, saying he was qualified to be the special master on the case.

The Justice Department opposed the appointment of Florida's former deputy attorney general Paul Huck, while Trump's camp has denied the two unnamed federal judges that the other party has suggested.

What Will The Special Master Be Doing?

Raymond Dearie will be tasked with deciding whether the documents that the FBI has recovered from Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida are "privileged" or not.

The former president has continued to point out that the said documents found in the mansion cover "attorney-client confidentiality" or through an "executive privilege," CBS News reported.

The National Archives, through a letter sent to Trump's legal counsel Evan Corcoran, noted that the said "executive privilege" does not exist. According to National Archivist Debra Steiland Wall, the Biden administration would not be honoring the former president's protective claims of executive privilege over the documents.

The letter noted that the DOJ found "no precedent for an assertion of executive privilege by a former president against an incumbent president to prevent the latter" from obtaining from the National Archives records that belong to the government. Thus, it added that the FBI should be given access to the documents "in a matter of days."

On Thursday, Cannon rejected the DOJ's demand to immediately continue its review of the records because the documents' nature was highly classified, according to Reuters. The judge ordered the temporary halting of the investigation until the independent review concludes.

"The court does not find it appropriate to accept the government's conclusions on these important and disputed issues without further review by a neutral third party in an expedited and orderly fashion," Cannon noted.

Cannon had directed Raymond Dearie to prioritize reviewing the classified records first and complete his review of all the seized materials by November 30.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Ivan Korrs

WATCH: Federal Judge Raymond Dearie Selected as Special Master - From CBS New York