Privileged Information & A Special Master – Top 3 Takeaways

Privileged Information & A Special Master – Top 3 Takeaways – August 30th, 2022 

1. Preliminary intent for a special master. There’s a lot in the legal realm that’s rhetorically cryptic. It was just yesterday we discussed who criminal confederates are and why they showed up twice in the unredacted portion of the Mar-a-Lago raid affidavit. But for now, the attention in the investigation will turn to Thursday’s hearing for a potential special master to be appointed to oversee the DOJ’s entire Trump-related investigation. By now we’re familiar with special people being appointed but mostly on the prosecutorial side. For example, there was Special Prosecutor Robert Muller, who was appointed to investigate the alleged Trump-Russia collusion, only to determine that there was never any. And then there was Special Prosecutor John Durham, who is still actively investigating the corruption within the DNC, Hilliary Clinton Campaign, CIA, FBI and DOJ – as they conspired to create the fraudulent Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy. Context, which should also be remembered as a premise to what’s happening with the DOJ and FBI against Trump right now. The concept of a “special master” is so foreign, this side of those with kinky tendencies, that the second most commonly related searched phrase is if a special master is a real thing. It is. As Cornell’s Law School defines: A "special master" is appointed by a court to carry out some sort of action on its behalf. Theoretically, a "special master" is distinguished from a "master". A master's function is essentially investigative, compiling evidence or documents to inform some future action by the court, whereas a special master carries out some direct action on the part of the court. It appears, however, that the "special master" designation is often used for people doing purely investigative work, and that the simple "master" designation is falling out of use. So, you’ve got it now, right? Yeah, the term is cryptic enough that even the explanation isn’t exactly clear. But I’ll attempt to clear what’s happening up. First is what happens today. U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, who issued the request for the hearing regarding the potential appointment of a special master set a deadline for today regarding “a more detailed” explanation of what was seized by the FBI during the Mar-a-Lago raid. She’s seeking an explanation for the attorney-client pillaged information seized in the raid. Information Trump and his legal team have asserted were illegally seized in the search. And that’s potentially huge because as I noted on Friday immediately following the release of the affidavit, if the Trump team is accurate in their accounting of attorney-client docs being seized by the FBI, which we now know is the case, the feds would be in a potential violation of section 83 on page 31 of the affidavit if they continued to possess them. That would mean... 
2. The FBI potentially broke the law during the raid and continued to do so after it. While it wouldn’t be the first time the FBI engaged in improper conduct involving Trump, it would be the most recent and certainly cause for additional oversight via a special master. As specifically indicated in the affidavit: If the Privilege Review Team determines the documents or data are not potentially attorney-client privileged, they will be provided to the law-enforcement personnel assigned to the investigation. If at any point the law-enforcement personnel assigned to the investigation subsequently identify any data or documents that they consider may be potentially attorney-client privileged, they will cease the review of such identified data or documents and refer the materials to the Privilege Review Team for further review by the Privilege Review Team. And low and behold, what happened? The DOJ admitted yesterday, in advance of today’s deadline, that they had seized what’s being called a “limited set” of attorney-client privileged documents upon completing the review of what had been seized during the raid. But they claim that they had completed the review and done this prior to Saturday. Umm, ok. So, the DOJ admits they have more stuff they shouldn’t, which Trump yet again correctly claimed they had. The DOJ stated they had completed their review prior to a judge demanding answers from them – yet continued to hold onto those privileged documents for what reason exactly? But they want you and the former president to know that it was all handled properly as per their Privilege Review Team – so...  
3. There’s really nothing to see here... Now, if the Feds had stuff from Trump’s legal team, that they were never supposed to have had access to, show of hands. How many people trust that the information stayed exclusively with the “Privilege Review Team”? Notably, this is the second development involving improperly obtained material. The first involved Trump’s passports which were acknowledged by the FBI, though only after Trump publicly announced this had been the case. It may well be that the FBI broke the terms of the search warrant by grabbing stuff they had no right to grab, not properly documenting what they did grab, and this would all be causation for a special master, or independent 3rd party to review everything that’s been obtained from Mar-a-Lago during the raid and to provide additional oversight into this investigation generally. It’s safe to say Trump’s skepticism is warranted as is a special master who will almost certainly be appointed following Thursday’s hearing. For reasons dating back to 2016, the feds have lost the benefit of the doubt. And ironically, in a country in which one’s innocent until proven guilty. A former president of the United States is being treated as though he’s guilty until being proven innocent of crimes he’s not been charged for.