Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSign up WASHINGTON, Sept 7 (Reuters) – A federal judge has given the U.S. Justice Department and Donald Trump’s lawyers until Friday to come up with a list of potential candidates to serve as a special master to review records seized by the FBI from the former president’s estate in Florida. . But finding people with the necessary experience and security clearances to handle the top-secret documents — and the willingness to wade into the political firestorm surrounding the investigation — will be no small task, legal experts said. “If we’re talking about highly classified material, there’s only a relatively small number of people who would meet the requirements of the job,” said attorney Kenneth Feinberg, who served as a special master for the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSign up “There should be someone willing to deal with the typhoon. It’s not purely a security issue. It’s become a political issue,” he said. One example of the challenge: the nonprofit law firm National Security Counselors last week provided the court with a list of four potential candidates with expertise in executive privilege. All four have since made public comments that either suggest they don’t want the job or that could be used to argue against them by lawyers for the Justice Department or Trump. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon ruled Monday that an expert should review the records seized from Trump’s Palm Beach home to weed out anything that should be withheld from prosecutors, either because of attorney-client privilege or executive privilege. – a legal doctrine that protects certain White House communications from disclosure. The US Supreme Court last year sidestepped the question of how far a former president’s privilege claims can go, rejecting Trump’s bid to withhold White House records from the January 6 select committee. But the US National Archives, in consultation with the Justice Department, told Trump’s lawyers earlier this year that it cannot claim privilege against the executive branch to protect the records from the FBI.
SPECIALIZED HANDYMAN
A special master is an independent outside expert who is sometimes brought in to review records seized by the government in sensitive cases where some of the material may be privileged. Whoever is selected will likely need to have a top-level security clearance because more than 100 of the 11,000-plus documents are marked as top secret, secret or confidential. Never before has an expert been called upon to determine whether the records are covered by executive privilege, particularly in the unique circumstance of a former president claiming privilege over the current president, Joe Biden. “Appointing a special master I think may be more difficult than people think,” said John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser who also previously served at the Justice Department. “How many TS/SCI licensees are out there? And how many of them are executive privilege specialists?” SOME ARE EXCEPTIONS None of the four potential candidates identified by the National Security Advisers in a court filing last week has openly embraced the idea. One of them, Mark Rozell, the dean of the school of public policy at George Mason University, asked to have his name removed from the list, telling Reuters: “I’m flattered that someone thinks I’m competent, but I prefer to analyze from outside the box.” Facts”. A second, former Justice Department lawyer Jonathan Schaub, did not say whether he would take the job, but criticized Cannon’s order in an interview with Reuters on Monday, saying it was “riddled with inaccuracies about the law” and that the judge appeared to be “bending over backwards to help Trump”. Northwestern University law professor Heidi Kitrosser, the third, told Reuters she thought she was unlikely to be selected after some conservative media outlets and Trump supporters on social media pointed to her past political comments. The fourth person, Mitchel Sollenberger of the University of Michigan-Dearborn, said he does not have a security clearance. A Justice Department spokesman said Monday the government is reviewing Cannon’s order without commenting on next steps. Trump’s lawyers did not respond to requests for comment. Most previous cases involving special masters involved practicing attorneys who had a duty to keep their clients’ records confidential. A special master was appointed, for example, after the FBI searched the homes and offices of former Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Michael Cohen. Some legal experts said the best bet is to look for recently retired judges from Washington, D.C. or Florida who have handled national security cases and could easily get their license reinstated. Robert Costello, Giuliani’s lawyer, said that after the FBI seized items from his client’s home and office, the government and defense team were able to quickly agree on a special master candidate: retired judge Barbara Jones. “They will try to narrow it down to one,” he said, noting that they will look for someone who can be “neutral and fair.” If they can’t agree, she said, the judge can choose someone herself. “The judge would be wise to make sure he’s a consensus nominee,” Feinberg said. “He may end up appointing someone over the objection of one side or the other, but at least he has made an effort to define and calibrate the degree of opposition.” Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSign up Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Jacqueline Thomsen in Washington and Karen Freifeld in New York. Editing by Scott Malone and Mark Porter Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Jacqueline Thomsen Thomson Reuters Based in Washington, DC, Jacqueline Thomsen covers legal news related to politics, the courts and the legal profession. Follow her on Twitter at @jacq_thomsen and email her at [email protected]
