U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s order requiring the appointment of a special master to sift through the property seized in the search of Mar-a-Lago has found few defenders. Its tendentious factual account and muddled legal reasoning are easy to denigrate.
Nevertheless, some observers are suggesting the bottom line is not so worrisome, and that the best counsel for the Department of Justice is to take its lumps and go through the process Cannon has prescribed.
As a former prosecutor and Justice Department official, I can’t see it. The Cannon order is not only grievously flawed, it threatens inordinate delay and potential scuttling of the entire criminal investigation.
