Judge assists special master in reviewing Trump Mar-a-Lago documents

A federal judge in Florida said her “provisional intent” was to appoint a special master to investigate the trove of documents removed from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort earlier this month.​

US District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, appointed by Trump in 2020, warned that Saturday’s order should not be construed “as a final decision” on the former president’s request.​

Cannon, a judge in Florida’s Southern District, scheduled a hearing for Thursday and gave the Justice Department a Wednesday deadline to file a response to Trump’s request, as well as a more “detailed” title deed on what was removed from the Palm Beach property during the August 8 raid and the status of document verification.​

She noted that a “filter team” was already conducting a review of the materials.

Trump, who has condemned the search for documents at his oceanfront home, filed a motion to appoint the special master last week.

“Law enforcement is a shield protecting Americans. It cannot be used as a weapon for political purposes,” Trump’s legal team said in the filing. “That is why we are seeking legal assistance following an unprecedented and unnecessary raid on President Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago.”

In a message on his Truth Social platform on Saturday, Trump reiterated his belief that the raid was politically motivated because he was the “clear frontrunner” in the 2024 Republican presidential primary.

“The Florida federal judge just took over the Presidential Records Act case, including the unprecedented, unnecessary and unannounced FBI/DOJ raid (burglary!) of my home, Mar-a-Lago. This attack was carried out just before the midterm elections (and of course 2024!) for political reasons,” he said in the post. “It’s a disgrace to our current third world nation!”

Cannon’s two-page verdict came a day after the Justice Department released the heavily redacted affidavit used to get a judge to sign off on a search of Trump’s estate for classified documents.

The FBI said in the 38-page document that the raid was warranted because a review of boxes of documents that the National Archives and Records Administration removed from Mar-a-Lago in January revealed sensitive material.

Some of them were marked “HCS,” an acronym for the HUMINT Control System, which refers to top-secret government measures used to “protect intelligence information obtained from classified human sources.”

Of the 184 classified documents retrieved, 25 were marked as top secret, 92 as secret and another 67 as confidential, the affidavit said