The latest in the Trump classified documents investigation

How will the appointment of a "special master" impact the DOJ investigation into Trump's handling of classified documents?

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This image contained in a court filing by the Department of Justice on Aug. 30, 2022, and redacted by in part by the FBI, shows a photo of documents seized during the Aug. 8 search by the FBI of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. (Department of Justice via AP)

This image contained in a court filing by the Department of Justice on Aug. 30, 2022, and redacted by in part by the FBI, shows a photo of documents seized during the Aug. 8 search by the FBI of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. (Department of Justice via AP)

A U.S. District judge granted former President Trump’s request to have a special master review evidence and classified documents that the FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago last month. In Trump’s motion, he asserted that some of the documents might be protected by attorney-client or executive privilege. Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon, who made the ruling, also temporarily blocked the Department of Justice from continuing its criminal investigation into the documents they collected from the resort.

This hour, the latest in the special master ruling, and where this leaves the investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents.

Guests

Charlie SavageThe New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning national security and legal reporter. He’s the author of Power Wars: The Relentless Rise of Presidential Authority and Secrecy. @charlie_savage

Craig Green, Professor of Law at Temple University and a former Justice Department lawyer who worked for the George W. Bush administration. He also clerked for Merrick Garland.

We recommend

The New York Times, ‘Deeply Problematic’: Experts Question Judge’s Intervention in Trump Inquiry – “This would seem to me to be a genuinely unprecedented decision by a judge,” Mr. Rosenzweig said. “Enjoining the ongoing criminal investigation is simply untenable.”

Slate, Should DOJ Appeal Judge Cannon’s Incredibly Flawed Trump Special Master Ruling? “…if there is one aspect of the decision that summarizes why we must take exception, it is the order’s repeated statements about how special a former president is, such as noting that “the stigma associated with the subject seizure is in a league of its own” due to the “Plaintiff’s former position as President of the United States.”

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