
A Brooklyn-based federal judge was selected on Thursday to serve as an independent arbiter to review the materials seized in the FBI’s search of former President Donald Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, CNN reported.
The special master will be Senior Judge Raymond Dearie, who was put forward as a possible candidate for the special master role by Trump. The Justice Department also endorsed Dearie’s appointment.
US District Judge Aileen Cannon also rejected the Justice Department’s bid to resume its criminal investigation into classified documents seized at Mar-a-Lago last month. The denial sets the stage for the department’s dispute with Trump over the search to move quickly to an appeals court and potentially the US Supreme Court.
An intelligence community review of the documents has been paused since last week when Cannon ordered the criminal investigation to stop for the moment.
The Justice Department later appealed the order, saying it hindered its ability to conduct criminal investigation related to Trump's possession of the classified documents.
Cannon gave the special master a deadline of November 30 to finish his review of potentially privileged documents, according to CNN.
Dearie sits on the district court for the Eastern District of Brooklyn, where he has taken senior status – meaning his workload has been lightened significantly as he nears the end of his time on the federal bench.
He was appointed as a judge by Ronald Reagan in 1986 and was for a time the chief judge of the Brooklyn-based district court. He also served a seven-year term, concluding in 2019, on the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
A recent New York Times report indicated that the US government recovered more than 300 documents with classified markings from Mar-a-Lago during the August 8 raid.
According to the report, the classified documents included material from the CIA, the National Security Agency and the FBI.
Last week, The Washington Post reported that a document describing a foreign government’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities, was found by FBI agents during the search of Trump’s home.