William: A federal judge today
approved former president Donald
Trump's request for an outside
legal expert to review the many
files that were seized by the
FBI from his Florida home.
The decision temporarily blocks
federal prosecutors from using
any of that evidence as they
investigate whether Mr.
Trump broke the law.
For more on what this means, I
am joined
again by
Carrie Johnson, justice
correspondent for NPR.
Welcome back to the program.
Talk a little bit about what
this judge, this judge was
appointed by president trump at
the very tail end of his
presidency.
What did she say today?
>> Judge Eileen cannon and
Florida basically said it is an
extraordinary circumstance, she
wanted to ensure that there was
integrity in this process and a
sense of fairness in the
process, so she was ordering a
special master, an independent
arbiter to review something like
11,000 pages the FBI seized
him's mar-a-lago resort last
month as well as some other
items.
She wants is independent arbiter
to look for personal items in
this cash of materials and look
for papers that may indicate
either executive privilege or
attorney client privilege.
She said the justice department
in the meantime cannot use these
papers to further its active
criminal investigation into
alleged obstruction of justice
among other crimes.
William: I want to read this
quote from the ruling today.
She said as a function of the
plaintiff's former position as
president of the United States,
the stigma associated with the
subject seizure is in a league
of its own, a future indictment
based to any degree on property
that ought to be returned would
result in reputational harm of a
decidedly different order of
magnitude.
Could you translate for us, what
is she saying in that?
Carrie: She's basically saying
we've never had an active
criminal investigation of the
inner circle of a foreign
president of the United States
and we've never had a
court-appointed search to
authorize the FBI to review
materials at the home of a
former president.
She is basically bending over
backward to ensure fairness in
this process, in part because
trump is the former president of
the United States and former
leader of the executive branch.
But many justice department
officials who I consulted today
for like the judge is giving
trump some treatment that many
other people don't get when they
are under investigation.
Of course trump or no one else
has been charged with wrongdoing
in this investigation, but he is
getting some initial layers of
insulation that most normal
people don't get.
William: So if this ruling
stands, a special master it's
appointed, who chooses that
individual?
Carrie: People representing the
justice department and Donald
Trump can get together and
develop a short list of special
master candidates, send that to
her by Friday and then the judge
would choose from that list.
Also importantly define the
scope of what that special
master would do.
That's going to become very
important moving forward and dlg
-- doj is currently reviewing
its option.
It may decide it wants to appeal
all this to the 11th circuit
court of appeals.
William: Let's say it does go
forward, what does it mean for
their ongoing investigation?
Carrie: It certainly means there
will be some elements of the doj
said it already reviewed these
materials using a special
process and it took between 2-3
weeks to review the materials
for possible attorney halfing
client -- four attorney-client
privilege.
The process once a master is
appointed could take 2-3 weeks
or longer, not factoring in
possible appeals and other legal
wrangling.
The investigation is in its
early stages and we don't know
how long it's going to take, but
certainly doj doesn't want a lot
of meddling as it tries to find
that would happen here and also
tries to assess the national
security risk to having some of
these materials at a resort in
Florida when the government and
police say it should be at
secure facilities controlled by
the U.S. Government.
William: As you touched on
earlier, the judge also said
that the doj can't use any of
these documents that are in
their possession now for further
investigations so that means in
some ways the investigation
slows down or comes to a halt,
is that right?
Carrie: It's not entirely clear
if they will need to seek
additional guidance from the
judge.
It is already reviewed some of
these papers and maybe it has
gotten some information from
civilian witnesses that you here
have been interviewed already in
trump's inner circle and
elsewhere, but it is hard to
draw aligned or boundary around
what the doj knows from other
sir -- from other sources and
from these materials.
It's a little complicated moving
forward deciding what the judge
wants to do or not do.
Remember there is an ongoing
investigation in the
intelligence community to assess
national security risk.
The judge says that should go on
unhindered.
But again, it's hard to draw
these lines when the FBI is part
of the intelligence unity.
William: Carrie Johnson, help --
thank you for helping us wade
through all of this.
Carrie: My pleasure.