“A special master shall be APPOINTED to review the seized property, manage assertions of privilege and make recommendations thereon, and evaluate claims for return of property. ...The Government is TEMPORARILY ENJOINED from further review and use of any of the materials seized from Plaintiff’s residence on August 8, 2022, for criminal investigative purposes pending resolution of the special maser’s review process as determined by this court. The Government may continue to review and use the materials seized for purposes of intelligence, classification, and national security assessments.”

Significantly, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines (editorial aside:  yet another fervently anti-Trump intel official) is allowed to continue her investigation, alongside the DOJ, to determine the classification levels of these hundreds of pages of documents deemed classified.

Here’s the full 24-page order:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22275118-cannon-order

You might appreciate this irony on page 1, second paragraph: “Pursuant to the Court’s equitable jurisdiction and inherent supervisory authority, and mindful of the need to ensure AT LEAST THE APPEARANCE OF FAIRNESS AND INTEGRITY [emphasis ours] under the extraordinary circumstances presented, Plaintiff’s motion...is GRANTED IN PART [emphasis hers].” In other words, even the judge implies that only the appearance of fairness and integrity is what we’re going to get in this case, not the real thing.

A DOJ spokesman released this statement: “The United States is examining the opinion and will consider appropriate next steps in the ongoing litigation.” It might be that the DOJ will appeal to the 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals, as they did not want a special master appointed.

Jonathan Turley said Monday on FOX NEWS that he thought this decision was the right one, saying it would offer “some reassurance” to millions of Americans about the purpose of the raid –- though we're not so sure it does much about that, especially with the obvious caveats in the order –- and also about the handling of these documents. At the same time, he said, it won’t “change the trajectory of the case” –- heck, they’ve already seen the documents –- though it temporarily prevents the DOJ from using confiscated documents “for prosecutorial purposes.” He thought that restriction might be the reason for an appeal, as “they have nothing to lose” by asking, “except the precedent they might create.”

“I think the Department of ‘Justice’ blew this one,” Turley said, “in how they responded to this motion. “They really overplayed their hand,” by saying national security would be threatened by the appointment of a special master, which is done all the time in cases involving sensitive materials. They never explained how something so routine would do that, especially when a special master with top-level security clearance is appointed. We would assume they didn’t explain it because they CAN’T, and add that their strong objection to the appointment of a neutral party raised even more suspicion that they had something to hide regarding when they were looking for and what they took.

We’d also caution that, depending on who is appointed special master, their protests might even be of the Br’er Rabbit “please don’t throw me in the briar patch” variety. If they manage to get someone who shares their biases against President Trump, it might be exactly what they DO want, because that places the stamp of approval on an unjust legal process.

Something else we noticed: Judge Cannon’s order mentions that earlier in the year, the “records in question were requested by the INCUMBENT PRESIDENT.” (That’s on page 3; emphasis mine.) So much for Biden’s claim that he knew nothing about this.  Not only was he briefed, he asked for the documents himself.  No word on whether he knew about the massive FBI raid, but if you think he didn't, would you like to buy a bridge from me?

They apparently are looking into charging the President with obstruction, and “for that,” Turley advised, “you need a knowing concealment,” so they’ll be querying witnesses about what was known to be in the boxes, who knew it was there, what steps were taken after documents were subpoenaed, etc. They’ll try to hit “low-hanging fruit” with collateral indictments and get them to incriminate Trump as part of a plea deal. It’s a dead-serious pursuit; Turley didn’t use the phrase “out for blood,” but we will.

He did say it was almost unimaginable that they could have executed a warrant this “absurdly broad” and not have swept up privileged information. And that’s what we suspect was the real purpose here. The scope of the warrant was, as Turley said, “perfectly bizarre” --- allowing them to take virtually every scrap of material from the Trump presidency. As I remind my readers, I and my staff are not attorneys, but that looks like a clear violation of the 4^th Amendment to us. You don’t have to be a law professor like Jonathan Turley to know that.

So, what next? Judge Cannon has directed Trump’s lawyers and the government lawyers to confer and submit a joint filing with a list of special master candidates and also their proposals for how that person should operate. (We reported several days ago about an outside group that had already submitted a list of four potential candidates –- all appearing to be infused with anti-Trump bias.  The judge should ignore this.)

https://jonathanturley.org/2022/09/05/hats-off-to-hillary-prosecuting-trump-in-the-shadow-of-clintons-emails/#more-193500