U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie will serve as special master to review documents seized at Mar-a-Lago.
Dearie – the only candidate for the role that the Justice Department and former US President Donald Trump’s legal team have agreed on – was selected for the job by US District Judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday .
Here’s what you need to know about Dearie and the role he will play in the investigation.
WHO IS RAYMOND DEARIE?
Dearie, a Reagan nominee, has served as a federal judge in New York since 1986. He retired in 2011 and is now a senior district judge.
He also served a seven-year term on the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or FISA court.
Dearie was one of the judges who approved a request from the FBI and DOJ to monitor Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, as part of the federal probe into whether Russia interfered. in the 2016 elections.
According to a report by the DOJ inspector general, the process used by federal investigators to obtain FISA warrants was riddled with errors and general negligence. Two of the four surveillance warrants granted by the secret FISA court regarding Page have since been declared invalid — including one approved by Dearie in June 2017 — due to omissions and errors in the FBI’s submissions to the court.
Team Trump’s nomination of Dearie is notable because Trump has repeatedly criticized FISA oversight and claimed – without evidence – that it was part of a “deep state” plot to undermine his country.
WHAT ROLE WILL DEARIE PLAY?
A special master is a third-party attorney appointed by a court to oversee part of a given case.
Dearie will specifically oversee the Justice Department’s review of evidence collected from Trump’s Florida residence and resort and screen privileged documents that may have been seized during the search.
Trump and the Justice Department, however, disagree on other key aspects of the special main examination, including how long it should take, who is responsible for paying for it, and what kind of documents are submitted. exam.
HOW LONG DERA DEARIE?
Cannon gives Dearie a November 30 deadline to complete her review of potentially privileged documents.
The DOJ had called for the process to end in October, while Trump’s team said it preferred 90 days.
Cannon’s timeline means the review will conclude after the midterm congressional elections, essentially ensuring that the Mar-a-Lago investigation will move slowly over the next two months unless a higher court rules. intervene.
She asked Dearie to prioritize the sorting of potentially privileged classified files.
WHY DID TRUMP WANTED A SPECIAL MASTER?
Trump’s legal team has widely argued that a special master is needed to ensure the Justice Department returns all of its private documents seized in the Mar-a-Lago search.
Lawyers for the former US president say his constitutional rights were violated and confidential documents may have been seized.
But in the court filings, Trump did not specify what exactly he hoped a special master would filter out, besides general allusions to “preferred and potentially privileged materials.”
Beyond Dearie, Trump’s legal team had suggested attorney Paul Huck Jr., a former partner at the Jones Day law firm, as a special counsel — a proposal the DOJ disagreed with. , noting that he “doesn’t seem to have a similar experience” to Dearie and two retired federal judges the department has nominated.
THE DOJ’S POSITION
Prior to Dearie’s selection, the Justice Department had nominated retired federal judges Barbara Jones and Thomas Griffith to potentially play the role.
“Each has substantial judicial experience, during which they have presided over federal criminal and civil cases, including federal cases involving national security and privilege issues,” prosecutors wrote of Jones, Griffith and Dearie. .
Dearie, however, was the only candidate that both sides had agreed could serve as a special master.
The Justice Department argued that a special master should not touch any documents with classification marks and that the review should not include any consideration of executive privilege.
The agency had challenged the need for a special master in court before Cannon sided with Trump. In the legal documents, the DOJ said it had identified “a limited set of documents” from its search for documents retrieved from Mar-a-Lago that potentially contained material covered by attorney-client privilege and that he was already dealing with professional secrecy. disputes.